Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

MESSAGES FROM THE QUEEN

SUPPLIES AND SERVICES (TRANSITIONAL POWERS) AND EMERGENCY LAWS (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS)

The VICE-CHAMBERLAIN OF THE HOUSE-HOLD reported Her Majesty's answer to the Addresses, as follows:

I have received your Addresses praying that the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act, 1945, and the various Defence Regulations and enactments which you specify be continued in force respectively for a further period of one year until the tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-eight.

I will give directions accordingly.

PATENTS AND DESIGNS

The VICE-CHAMBERLAIN OF THE HOUSE-HOLD reported Her Majesty's answer to the Addresses, as follows:

I have received your Addresses praying that the Patents (Extension of Period of Emergency) Order, 1957, and the Registered Designs (Extension of Period of Emergency) Order, 1957, be made in the form of the respective drafts laid before Parliament.

I will comply with your request.

PRIVATE BUSINESS

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND (GENERAL TRUSTEES) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

DUNDEE CORPORATION (CONSOLIDATED POWERS) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Considered; to be read the Third time Tomorrow.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRISONS

Visiting Rooms (Glass Partitions)

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make new arrangements for visits to prisoners so that they no longer take place in boxes with glass partitions between visitor and prisoner.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): Much progress has been made in providing pleasant visiting rooms, and this will continue wherever accommodation is available. In all prisons, visits in cubicles with glass partitions are, so far as possible, restricted to unconvicted prisoners and others for whom this precaution is thought necessary.

Mr. Brockway: Would the right hon. Gentleman go in disguise to one of the prisons—

Mr. G. Thomas: He has been.

Mr. Brockway: —and see this barbarity for himself? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is not the case that this method is limited to unconvicted prisoners? Can he imagine what it is like with a row of these open boxes with a glass barrier between prisoner and visitor wishing to speak of intimacies, a babel of shouting because they cannot hear, the woman leaning against the glass because she cannot say a word? Will the right hon. Gentleman look into this situation?

Mr. Butler: I have been to look for myself, and I think that is the right thing to do, but I shall always go undisguised. The position is that much progress has been made, but not enough. I confess, and that we try to restrict this inconvenience to unconvicted prisoners for reasons which we must maintain. I have said "so far as possible." The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that it is not in every case. All we can do is to make progress with this and other prison reforms as soon as we can.

Letters to Members

Mr. Collins: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will abolish the censorship of prisoners' letters to Members of Parliament.

Mr. R. A. Butler: No, Sir. I have looked again at the statement made to the House by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) when he was Home Secretary, and at the reports of subsequent discussions of this question in the House, and I find no grounds for differing from the conlusions reached by my predecessors in office.

Mr. Collins: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, as in other matters, references to pre-1951 happenings are not always welcomed on this side of the House? Does not he think that this practice is a reflection on the integrity and judgment of Members of Parliament? Is he aware that many enlightened prison governors would welcome the abolition of this practice?

Mr. Butler: I dare say, and if they would I hope they will communicate with me. The difficulty is that questions of prison discipline should be dealt with by the authorities on the spot. I do not think M.P.s can help with that. There are certain matters, to which the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) referred on 29th July, 1949, which are not suitable for letters of this sort. I do not see any reason to depart from his judgment, because I think that it would be unwise for such things to be included in letters. Otherwise, prisoners can, of course, write to Members of Parliament.

Cell Lights

Mr. Collins: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, having regard to the fact that prisoners on the escape list are deprived of their clothing at night and are subject to other safety restrictions, he will cancel the instruction requiring that lights in their cells be kept burning all night.

Mr. R. A. Butler: No, Sir. It is essential that a regular watch should be kept on these prisoners during the night, and the use of a dimmed light enables this to be done without disturbing prisoners by frequent opening of cell doors.

Mr. Collins: Is the Home Secretary aware that men who merely escaped from

magistrates' courts before sentence have been for two years on the escape list? Does he not think that a 25-watt bulb burning over their heads all the time is torture by light? Is not that totally at variance with his conception and hopes of what should be done in prisons, and will he look at the matter again?

Mr. Butler: I will certainly look at it again, but prisoners are not kept on the escape list longer than we can help.

Visiting Magistrates (Prison Clerical Officers)

Mr. Hyde: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department in how many prisons visiting magistrates, when discharging their official duties, are accompanied by prison clerical officers.

Mr. R. A. Butler: In 66 out of 77 cases the clerk to the visiting committee or board of visitors is an officer of the Department.

Mr. Hyde: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that where a visiting magistrate has no legal qualifications it is desirable that he should be accompanied by a solicitor, clerk of the peace or someone who can exercise an independent official opinion?

Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir, in general. I do.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Prostitutes

Dr. D. Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what record is kept of convicted prostitutes who have obtained British nationality by marriage.

Mr. R. A. Butler: It is the practice of the Metropolitan Police, when a married prostitute first comes to notice, to inquire whether she was an alien before marriage. I am circulating what information is available in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Dr. Johnson: When considering fresh legislation, will my right hon. Friend have in mind this question of so-called marriages of convenience, whereby foreign women are brought into this country and given British nationality by marriage purely for the purpose of prostitution?

Mr. Butler: I have looked into that and if my hon. Friend will refer to paragraph 343 of the Wolfenden Report, he will see that that shows the difficulties involved in devising a machinery to deal with this matter, but, of course, it is one that is always with us.

Following is the information:
Of 643 women arrested in the West End for soliciting in 1956, 82 were married women of foreign origin; only 21 of these had first come to notice in the years 1953–6. It cannot be assumed that the marriages were in all cases marriages of convenience. Information is not available from police forces other than the Metropolitan.

Prevention of Accidents (Home Safety)

Mrs. Mann: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how often the Interdepartmental Committee on Home Safety has met during the past session; what recommendations it has made; and how often it expects to meet in the coming Session.

Mr. R. A. Butler: During the past Session the Committee has been mainly concerned with the flammability of clothing materials, and a Sub-Committee on this subject met four times. The full Committee met once. The purpose of the Committee is not to make recommendations but to co-ordinate Departmental activity. It expects to meet three or four times during the present Session.

Mrs. Mann: Cannot the Home Secretary get a move on over this? Is he aware that last year there were 4,000 deaths of old people resulting from falls in institutions—old people who have fallen on the highly-polished floor of an institution? Cannot we have some regard for the appalling number of deaths among elderly people? Could not the Committee really become a bit more effective?

Mr. Butler: Of course, the Committee's only job is the task of bringing together all Government activities in this matter. We have had a report from the British Standards Institution recommending that there should be a campaign of public education. That, I think, would be more effective, and we are giving attention to it.

Mrs. Mann: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what grant is to be made, this year and next, to the Royal Society for Prevention of

Accidents towards its work for safety in the home.

Mr. R. A. Butler: In accordance with an arrangement made in 1954, the Society will receive in the current year the third of three annual grants of £1,500. The purpose of the arrangement was to enable the Society so to extend the scope of its work that it could be maintained by voluntary subscriptions.

Mrs. Mann: Is the Home Secretary aware that his right hon. colleague the Minister of Transport gives the same Society £68,000 for its work on roads? As deaths from home accidents exceed road deaths by a 1,000 a year, why should there be such a discrepancy?

Mr. Butler: My precedessor, the present Lord Chancellor, made a statement on this subject. The object of the grant was to extend the scope of the Society's work so that it could be maintained by voluntary subscriptions. Since then, the Society has made an application for the renewal of its grant. That application is under consideration, so perhaps the House would let me consider it.

Poisons (Retail Sale)

Mr. E. Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will amend the Pharmacy Acts so that the attendance of a qualified pharmacist will not be necessary for the retail sale of a pre-packed advertised patent medicine containing a trivial amount of a scheduled poison.

Mr. R. A. Butler: No, Sir. I do not consider that it would be practicable or desirable to depart from the established practice by which exemptions from the law relating to the retail sale of poisons are confined to specified poisons contained in specified substances or preparations.

Mr. Johnson: Whilst appreciating the need for caution in these matters, is it not ultra-cautious to require the presence of a qualified pharmacist for the sale of something like Veganin? Could not an experienced deputy be appointed to act for the pharmacist in the sale of articles of that type?

Mr. Butler: We have powers under the Pharmacy and Poisons Act, 1933, and the


Third Schedule to the Poisons Rules, 1952, to make certain exceptions. For the moment, I should like to rely on those powers and see what can be done under them.

Civil Defence (Evacuation)

Mr. Zilliacus: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in view of his reply to the hon. Member for Gorton on 31st October that there would be only five minutes' warning of an atomic attack but that the Government proposed to evacuate 40 to 45 per cent. of the population of the highly industrialised areas in advance of the outbreak of hostilities, on how much advance notice of the outbreak of nuclear hostilities the Government bases its plans for the evacuation of 12 million people.

Mr. R. A. Butler: The time required to carry out any scheme of evacuation which may be decided upon would vary from one area to another according to circumstances.

Mr. Zilliacus: Will it not take a matter of weeks, rather than days, to evacuate 12 million people? Is it not a fact that the most we can expect in the way of warning of the outbreak of hostilities is a period of hours, if not of minutes? Will not the Home Secretary address himself to this question in a spirit of realism? How does he expect to carry out this evacuation plan in advance of hostilities?

Mr. Butler: I think that we may, perhaps, get some idea of the climate of the situation rather longer ahead than the hon. Gentleman realises, but I should like to reassure the House that we are having discussions about this evacuation policy with the local authorities associations. These discussions are not yet complete. When they are complete, it would be better for me to make a further statement.

Mr. Younger: Can the Home Secretary tell us whether he is contemplating in the fairly near future making any general statement on Civil Defence? It is my impression that we have not had a general statement for some time, and as events seem to be moving very fast indeed, can the right hon. Gentleman say if we can hope for a comprehensive statement fairly soon?

Mr. Butler: I shall certainly pay attention to the right hon. Gentleman's request on this subject and regard it as a matter we can discuss.

Maintenance Orders (Attachment of Incomes)

Mrs. White: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proposals he has to deal with the thousands of men now serving prison sentences for failure to meet maintenance payments due under court order to their wives or children.

Mr. R. A: Butler: As I stated in reply to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Miss Vickers) on 19th November, the Government propose to introduce during the present Session a Bill to provide for the attachment of earnings to satisfy maintenance orders on which payments have fallen into arrears. This was among the measures recommended by my Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders in its recent Report on alternatives to short terms of imprisonment, and I hope that it will significantly reduce the number of men who go to prison for failure to meet their maintenance obligations.

Mrs. White: While the right hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware that his decision to bring in such a Measure is in the public interest and will meet with the approval of the Magistrates' Association, the Association of Probation Officers, the Howard League and various other organisations, would he tell the House whether he has good hopes of reaching some agreement with the Trades Union Congress?

Mr. Butler: I realise that there are difficulties about this Measure, but I must stress that the number of men committed to prison for failure to meet maintenance obligations is about 5,000 a year and that the average period served is six weeks. With the present crowded state of the prisons, it must be encumbent on me to take any steps I can to reduce the pressure on them. It is in that spirit, realising the difficulties that both the Trades Union Congress and some industrialists feel, that I must discuss with all those interested some of the difficulties that arise.

Anthony John Seaward

Mr. McKay: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what were the circumstances which led to the certification of John Seaward, who was transferred from an approved school to an institution for mental defectives; and, when tested later, what standard of average mentality he was found to have;
(2) what kind of tests were made with John Seaward to justify his transfer to the institution for mental defectives; and what tests were nude that caused the previous decision to be reversed.

Mr. R. A. Butler: The certificates of two duly qualified medical practitioners satisfied my predecessor that Anthony John Seaward was a defective as defined in the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913. They classified him as a moral defective after examining him separately and obtaining information about him from his approved school, including the result of tests showing that his intelligence was above average. Their findings were confirmed on periodic review in the mental institution to which he was transferred.
The prison medical officer, who had him under observation in Leicester Prison for nearly three weeks while he was awaiting trial for offences committed when on licence from the Institution, came to a different conclusion from that reached by the other doctors who had examined him. But the decision was taken on the best medical opinion then available.

Mr. McKay: Is the Home Secretary aware that his Answer to those two questions demonstrates the whole difficulty of deciding when a boy is a real defective? When there is a borderline case, can be explain what guides the Home Secretary in making his decision? What guides him in coming to the conclusion that a boy should go to a hospital for defectives? It seems to me that in many cases there is a tremendous amount of discrepancy and that this is a case which indicates the whole difficulty.

Mr. Butler: I think this difficulty was also realised by the Royal Commission on Mental Illness, which pointed out that there may be a difference in the medical opinion—which is exactly what happened in this particular case—especially when the patient's intelligence is above the

average. I regard this as a most difficult case, but I am satisfied that it was judged by the Secretary of State on the best information available to him from his medical advisers, which was all that he could do.

Personal Case

Mr. McKay: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has considered the plea of the honourable Member for Wallsend that the boy from his constituency, who is in the Aycliffe Approved School, should not be transferred to an institution for mental defectives; and what is his decision.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I have considered the hon. Member's representations, but, as I have informed him, I am satisfied from the certificates of two qualified doctors that the boy is a defective. I propose to make an order under Section 9 of the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913, for his transfer to hospital as soon as a vacancy can be found for him.

Mr. McKay: Is the Minister aware that I have seen this boy, that I have interviewed doctors and seen the schoolmaster about his school career, and that I have interviewed an employer who engaged the boy for a week? Is he aware that the evidence of these people does not indicate that the boy should be put into a school for mental defectives? Is he aware that I am bitterly disappointed and, after interviewing the doctors, the officials and the boy himself, am satisfied that the boy should not be sent to this school but would be far better at home under proper control? Will the right hon. Gentleman review this case again in six months' time?

Mr. Butler: I have had correspondence with the hon. Member and know that he feels very deeply about this case; but I have had before me full reports about the boy both before and since his admission to this school, as well as the specialist medical advice available to my Department. The decision has been taken on the best advice, but I will certainly keep in touch with the hon. Member.

Opening of Parliament (Closure of Streets)

Mr. Lipton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many streets were closed, and for how


long, when Parliament was opened on 5th November last.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I am informed by the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis that 36 streets and parts of a further six streets were closed to general traffic for periods varying from two-and-a-half to nearly three hours.

Mr. Lipton: Has the Home Secretary noted that this year's State opening of Parliament caused more widespread dislocation of traffic than ever before? Is it necessary to close so many streets for so long to provide for so short a procession over such a short distance, when the procession takes only a few minutes to pass any given point? Is it not time for fresh thinking about the problem?

Mr. Butler: The trouble in this case is that the fresh thinking would have to be done by the weather. The restrictions were imposed at 9.30 a.m. when we expected the traffic peak would normally have passed, but in fact it was badly delayed by the weather, which partially accounts for the difficulties which arose.

Lord Mayor's Procession (Traffic Congestion)

Mr. Lipton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department to what extent there was less dislocation of traffic during the Lord Mayor's procession on 9th November last, compared with previous years.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I am informed by the Commissioners of Police for the City of London and of the Metropolis that the dislocation of traffic was notably less than in recent years.

Mr. Lipton: Is it not obvious that having the Lord Mayor's Show on Saturday was more fun for the children and gave less cause for cursing among adults on their lawful business? Therefore, will not the Home Secretary enter into some discussions with the authorities concerned about the little bit of legislation required to ensure that the Lord Mayor's Show takes place on the first or second Saturday in November? Experience has shown that Saturday is the best day for the job.

Mr. Butler: It is the tradition that the Lord Mayor's Show is held on the day when he goes to take the oath at the Law

Courts, namely, 9th November, which this year fell on a Saturday. I am certainly ready to discuss this matter, but I think that it would be rather difficult to depart from tradition.

Hon. Members: Why?

Mr. Lipton: Cannot the Home Secretary establish another tradition?

Young Persons

Mrs. Slater: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are his proposals for legislation to deal with the problem of young persons committed to the care of local authorities until 18 years of age, bearing in mind that a local authority has no powers of restraint over such persons over 17 years of age.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I feel sure that Lord Ingleby's Committee on Children and Young Persons will study this problem, and that we shall be in a better position to consider the need for legislation when they have reported.

Mrs. Slater: May I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reply? Will he bear in mind that local government officers dealing with children's committee work are extremely concerned about this, and that while there may be few cases, they are always very serious?

Mr. Butler: Yes, I am aware of that.

Off-licence Application, Carlisle

Dr. D. Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give the reasons for his refusal of the application for an off-licence for the sale of beer, wine, and spirits made by Mrs. Margaret Cheetham, of 9 Blackwell Road, Carlisle.

Mr. R. A. Butler: After careful consideration of Mrs. Cheetham's application, in consultation with the Local Advisory Committee and the State Management Districts Council, I did not feel justified in making an exception in this instance from the established policy that the sale of liquor in Carlisle should, in general, be confined to the State Management Scheme.

Dr. Johnson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is room in the City of Carlisle for private off-licences of this


nature to supplement the service given under the State Management Scheme? Will he consider seriously the possibility of modifying the scheme?

Mr. Butler: There- is power for the Secretary of State to authorise the sale of liquor by persons other than through the State Management Scheme in Carlisle, and we did make an exception for Carrow House, a country hotel. Mrs. Cheetham's application was on behalf of the inhabitants of Currock, and even had we granted the application the inhabitants of Currock would have had to take a considerable journey in order to obtain the facilities which they desired at Mrs. Cheetham's establishment. We therefore thought it right not to accede to it.

Preventive Detention

Mr. Collins: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will set up a committee of inquiry into the results achieved by the system of preventive detention with a view to ascertaining the extent to which in its effects the system is reformative or merely punitive.

Mr. R. A. Butler: Although the primary object of preventive detention is to protect society from persistent offenders, the Prison Commissioners do what they can to reform prisoners in this category. In view of the length of the sentences, there has not been time to assess their effects, but some preliminary studies are in hand. In these circumstances, I do not think that the appointment of a committee of inquiry is necessary at present.

Mr. Collins: Is the Home Secretary aware, particularly in the case of nuisance offenders, of the feeling of hopelessness engendered by a ten-year sentence? In any inquiries he makes, will the right hon. Gentleman pay particular regard to the provision of craft training and industrial employment, if possible outside prison, for the second-stage detainee?

Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. If the hon. Member wishes to put any point to me, I shall be glad for him to do so.

Undesirable Immigrants (Deportation)

Mr. N. Pannell: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the fact that immigrants from the Colonies and from the

Republic of Eire together represented 70 per cent. of those convicted of living on immoral earnings in the Metropolitan Police area during 1956, he will now consider introducing legislation to permit the deportation of such criminals.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I regret that I am unable to add to the Answers which I gave to my hon. Friend on 28th February and 4th July last.

Mr. Pannell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that 60 per cent. of those convicted of living on immoral earnings are immigrants from Commonwealth countries which have power to deport the nationals of the United Kingdom? Does not he consider that such countries would freely concede our right to introduce reciprocal legislation with regard to such repulsive crimes?

Mr. Butler: First, we must get this matter in proportion. The 106 persons convicted in the Metropolitan Police District in 1956 of living on immoral earnings included 37 Maltese, 18 from West Africa, 11 from the Republic of Ireland, and 31 from the United Kingdom. Were we to depart from the traditional British rule that the Mother Country does not deport British people of this sort, we should be making a departure which would be inadvisable and too profound.

Mr. Dugdale: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that hon. Members on this side of the House welcome this statement? Is he aware that statistics can prove almost anything, and that if they are used in a smear campaign against people from Commonwealth countries it will not be approved of by hon. Members on either side of the House?

Mr. Pannell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is no question of any smear campaign but that it is a question of bringing the facts before him? In view of the preponderance of this crime among colonial immigrants, does not my right hon. Friend consider that we should do something in the matter?

Mr. Butler: I realise that this is a very serious matter, and I am certain that my lion. Friend does not wish to introduce it as a smear campaign. There are certain traditions in this country about the rights of those who come into the country and those who go out, and if


we depart from them we shall get into greater difficulties than if we take action in this matter.

Flick-Knives

Mr. Janner: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that there have been further cases recently of the use of flick-knives for the commission of assaults; whether his attention has been drawn to the remarks of the learned judge at Durham Assizes recently that, if he could, he would make it an offence for anyone to sell flick-knives; and whether he will reconsider his decision in respect of legislation banning the sale of these knives to young persons.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I have seen reports of some recent prosecutions arising out of the use of flick-knives; and the rider recommending prohibition of their sale which was added to their verdict by the jury and endorsed by the Judge in a recent case is now before me. I am giving the matter careful consideration, but in view of the extensive powers which the police already have to deal with this problem under the Prevention of Crimes Act, 1953, I am not at present convinced that legislation of the kind proposed by the hon. Member is necessary.

Mr. Janner: Is not that a shocking thing? Is not the Minister aware that there have been murders committed by the use of these flick-knives since I last put the question? Is he aware that a judge said:
What an invention of the devil is a flick-knife, which unhappily so often features in crimes of violence in this country, often committed by young people.
Is he aware that some of the main journals in this country, such as the Yorkshire Post, the Leicester evening papers and other papers, have had leading articles condemning the present position, and will he do something to prevent any further murders by these knives?

Mr. Butler: I have consulted a number of chief constables, who reply that such people as farmers, fishermen, butchers, coblers, blacksmiths and electricians use these knives. Therefore, legislation would be very difficult. I have inquired where these knives come from, and I find that a large number come from abroad. I understand from my right hon. Friend the

President of the Board of Trade that there are considerable difficulties in placing a ban on these particular imports. I have to rely, therefore, upon the Prevention of Crimes Act, 1953, which makes it an offence to carry a thing of this sort.

Mr. Janner: This is a most unsatisfactory reply. I beg to ask leave to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Drunkenness

Mr. Gibson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the figures given in the White Paper on Offences of Drunkenness which show an increase of convictions for the year 1956 of nearly 10 per cent., and the increase in drunkenness among young people, he will use the resources of his Department to initiate a national campaign calling attention to the need for greater educational efforts by all responsible bodies to counteract this tendency in our national life.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I share the hon. Member's concern, though it is only fair to say that the number of convictions remains proportionately small. As regards educational measures, the Ministry of Education's pamphlet on health education draws attention to the need for good sense and self-control in the use of alcohol, the Service Departments have advised those concerned with the welfare of the Forces to take all appropriate opportunities of emphasising the virtue of moderation in drinking, and similar advice is given by some of the main voluntary youth organisations.

Mr. Gibson: I am obliged to the Home Secretary for his sympathy, but is he aware that the Ministry of Education circular, which used to be used in schools on this subject, has been very seriously modified until it is now almost no use at all? Will he take up the matter with his right hon. Friend with a view to the original unmodified circular being reintroduced?

Mr. Butler: I will certainly look at that suggestion and consult my right hon. Friend.

Traffic Control (Slow-moving Vehicles)

Captain Pilkington: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will recommend the mobile police in the Metropolis to warn


motorists, where necessary, to keep into the left, to leave a gap between themselves and the vehicle in front except when they intend to overtake, and generally to attempt to break up long queues of slow-moving traffic.

Mr. R. A. Butler: Operational matters of this kind must be left to the Commissioner of Police. He informs me that the subjects mentioned in the Question are covered by standing instructions to traffic patrols.

Captain Pilkington: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I wanted this Question to apply to all the police and not just to the Metropolitan Police but that I had difficulty in drafting the Question in that way? Does he not think that, if the police were encouraged to do this much more, there would be substantial relief to the present long and interminable queues of motorists.

Mr. Butler: I hope that forces outside the Metropolitan area will notice my hon. and gallant Friend's ingenuity and persistence on a subject which is very important.

Captain Pilkington: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recommendations he has made to the Metropolitan Police in respect of

Year or Period
Age of victim


Under one year
One year but under 14 years
60 years or over
All ages


1952
…
…
…
9
43
20
141


1953
…
…
…
11
39
23
141


1954
…
…
…
9
42
23
145


1955
…
…
…
10
49
17
133


1956
…
…
…
6
38
20
151


January—September, 1957
…
…
…
13
40
15
142


Notes


1. The figures, which relate to England and Wales only, show the number of victims of offences recorded by the police as murder or which would have been so recorded but for the passing of the Homicide Act, excluding those which to date have been found to be some other offence.


2. The figures for the current year are not exactly comparable with those for earlier years, because they necessarily contain a higher proportion of cases which have not been disposed of by the courts, some of which may be found not to be murders.

Mr. Hyde: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in future publications of criminal statistics

breaking up long traffic queues by requiring large slow-moving vehicles to draw into lay-byes.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I am informed by the Commissioner of Police that traffic patrols escorting large slow-moving vehicles or observing difficulties in the case of unescorted vehicles require the vehicles to be stopped periodically to allow following traffic to clear. There are very few lay-byes in the Metropolitan Police District suitable for the accommodation of vehicles carrying abnormally heavy loads.

Captain Pilkington: If it is practicable, can the police be encouraged to do this more frequently?

Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir.

Murders

Mr. Hyde: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will provide figures showing the murder rates of children and old people, respectively, during the past five years or other convenient period.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a table giving statistics for the years 1952–56 and for the first nine months of 1957.

Following is the table:

by his Department, he will indicate the age groups of the victims in crimes of murder.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I agree that it would be useful to give in the annual volume of Criminal Statistics some further particulars about the ages of victims of murder, and I shall consider how this information can best be given in future volumes.

Mr. Hyde: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there has been an idea gaining credence in the public mind that the murder rate has increased, particularly in respect of young children and old people? Does he not think it would be extremely helpful if we could have further and better particulars on this point?

Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir, I will see what I can do.

Air-Raid Shelters

Mr. G. Jeger: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will transfer to the appropriate local councils the authority to decide on the desirability of maintaining or demolishing air-raid shelters.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I think it is desirable to retain central control in the interests of uniformity of practice and as the whole cost of demolition, in approved cases, is reimbursed to the local authority by the Exchequer.

Mr. Jeger: While that may be all very well in theory, in practice many of these air-raid shelters are unsafe and insanitary and the breeding ground of pests. Will not the right hon. Gentleman trust local authorities a little more and give them a little more of the freedom about which we hear in his propaganda?

Mr. Butler: Shelters are demolished on Home Office authority at public expense if they are unsound, if their removal is essential for medical reasons, or if they obstruct road traffic or building development, and we continue to use that power.

Crimes of Violence

Mr. N. Pannell: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to reduce the incidence of crimes of violence against the person, especially in regard to youths, aged between 17 and 21 years, in respect to whom the number of those found guilty of this offence rose from 380 in 1948 to 1,220 in 1956.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I am concerned at this and other features of the incidence and pattern of crime as shown by recent statistics. I have constantly under review, in consultation with the Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders and others, those preventive and reformative measures that are open to me; and I hope that the inquiry into crimes of violence which the Cambridge Department of Criminal Science are conducting will provide valuable information about the nature and extent of the problem. It is not, however, as my hon. Friend will understand, one that can be solved solely by Government action.

Mr. Pannell: In view of the growing disquiet in the country at the increase of this type of crime, would my right hon. Friend consider restoring to the courts the power to order corporal punishment, especially birching for bad boys?

Mr. Butler: On the question of corporal punishment, I think we have to decide whether it should be for a criminal offence or not, and I am not at present persuaded that to make it a punishment for a criminal offence would be successful.

Procurement of Abortion (Prosecutions)

Mrs. L. Jeger: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many persons were prosecuted in the last convenient annual period for carrying out, or conniving at, attempts to procure abortion; what were the results; and how many of the persons charged were registered medical practitioners, nurses, or midwives.

Mr. R. A. Butler: As the answer contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mrs. Jeger: Can the Home Secretary say whether, in the first place, the figures are showing a tendency to go up or down; and secondly, whether he is satisfied that the law on this very difficult subject is really in keeping with modern social thinking and medical practice?

Mr. Butler: The actual figures, as the hon. Lady will see, are given only for 1956, so I would have to send her a comparison with previous years.

Following are the figures:

In 1956 in England and Wales 51 persons went for trial for offences under Sections 58 and 59 of the Offences against the Person Act, 1861. The results were as follows:



Males
Females


Acquitted
3
2


Conditional Discharge
1
3


Recognizances
4
5


Probation
—
3


Fine
1
1




Imprisonment:





Males
Females


For 6 months and under
—
1


For over 6 months and up to 1 year
1
7


For over 1 year and up to 2 years
1
8


For over 2 years and up to 3 years
2
6


For over 3 years and up to 4 years
1
1


Total imprisonment
5
23


TOTAL
14
37

In addition, a boy of 16 was dealt with by a juvenile court and put on probation. The figures do not include any persons who may have been convicted of offences under sections 58 and 59 at the same time as a more serious offence.

I regret that no information is available about the professions or occupations of the persons covered by this Answer.

Anglo-Egyptian Resettlement Board (Applications)

Mr. Iremonger: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many former British officials of the Egyptian Government have applied for assistance to the Anglo-Egyptian Resettlement Board, and with what result; what alternative schemes have been submitted to him for assisting these British subjects; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I understand that the Board has received twenty-eight such applications, of which seven have been granted, eleven have been refused and ten are being examined. As regards the second part of the Question, representations have been made that former officials of the Egyptian Government dismissed in 1951 should be treated on the same footing for ex gratia loans as British subjects who were compelled to leave Egypt as a result of the events of last year; but their circumstances are not the same.

Mr. Iremonger: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the injustice to which these

people have been subjected has been going on for far too long, and will he urge upon his right hon. Friend that a statement be made and say that the position must be given the highest priority for consideration?

Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir, so long as we do not confuse the two classes of persons, namely, the officials of 1951 and before and the residents. I would say that we would do our best for all of them, but there are different considerations affecting the two categories.

Car Parking Offences

Sir W. Anstruther-Gray: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department in how many of the 2,300 cases in which cars were towed away by the Metropolitan Police for improper parking a prosecution followed, and in how many cases a conviction; and whether it is his intention to intensify or to relax this form of traffic discipline.

Mr. R. A. Butler: Up to date figures are not available, but I am informed by the Commissioner of Police that of the 750 cases on which action was completed by 30th September, 232 had led to prosecutions. All but three of the drivers concerned were convicted. The police are taking and will continue to take appropriate action under the Regulations, within the limits of their resources.

Oral Answers to Questions — NASH TERRACES, REGENT'S PARK

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Lord Privy Seal if he will give an assurance that Her Majesty's Government will withhold approval of any proposal to demolish the Nash Terraces.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I must ask the House to await the statement by the Crown Estate Commissioners before expecting any indication of the Government's views on this problem.

Mr. Robinson: In the meantime, would the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the final responsibility for the preservation of these uniquely beautiful terraces rests not with the Crown Estate Commissioners but with Her Majesty's Government and with this House?

Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir, but provided that we are satisfied that the views of the


Crown Commissioners are, as I believe they will be, satisfactory, it will be better for the Government to allow the Crown Commissioners to go ahead with their plan. I am available to see any hon. Member who wishes to see me, and I should like to encourage the Crown Commissioners to make a statement at the very earliest possible day. Hon. Members would then have it before them, and I hope that it would do something to allay anxiety.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS

Anglo-South African Defence Discussions

Mr. P. Williams: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations whether overflying rights in the High Commission Territories for defence purposes have now been granted to the Union of South Africa.

Mr. Brockway: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations if he will make a statement on the defence agreement between the United Kingdom and the Union of South Africa; to what extent the native authorities in the High Commission Territories were consulted; and if objections have been made by chiefs or other representatives of the African population to the establishment of South African-controlled radar stations in the Protectorates.

The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. C. J. M. Alport): As the answer is rather long, will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Williams: May I thank my hon. Friend for that extremely helpful answer and ask whether the answer he proposes to circulate indicates increasing co-operation between Britain and the Union of South Africa on defence matters affecting both the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans?

Mr. Alport: Discussions on defence co-operation between the United Kingdom and South Africa have been proceeding for some time.

Mr. Brockway: Will the hon. Gentleman reply to the specific points in my question? The first is whether he is aware that the native Basutoland authorities, the Congress and the chiefs are

highly critical of this proposal? The second is whether he is particularly aware that they fear greatly the manning of any radar stations in their territory by South African personnel?

Mr. Alport: One reason why the answer is rather long is that the Member has included three questions in his main Question. The High Commissioner has received representations from Basutoland and Swaziland authorties about defence discussions, to which I refer in the answer which will be circulated.

Following is the Answer:
With regard to the defence discussions, I would refer the hon. Members to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War to the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stonehouse) on 30th October. Consequential discussions, including details connected with overflying rights, are still proceeding with the Union Government. They have not yet reached a point at which a further statement can be made.
The appropriate authorities in the Territories are consulted as necessary, and any views that they may express are taken into account. Her Majesty's Government are exclusively responsible for the security of the High Commission Territories and in discharging this responsibility will ensure that the interests of the inhabitants will be fully safeguarded.
As regards radar, I would refer the hon. Member for Windsor and Slough (Mr. Brockway) to the reply I gave to a Question by the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) on 20th November. The High Commissioner has received representations from Basutoland and Swaziland about reports relative to the defence discussions to which I have already referred.

Kashmir (Situation)

Mr. Donnelly: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what steps he is taking to resolve the difficulties in British-Indian relations arising out of the difference of view regarding the Kashmir situation.

Mr. Alport: I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to his Question on 21st March. Her Majesty's Government remain anxious to play their full part in securing a just solution to this difficult problem. To this end, we have joined the United States, Australia, Colombia and the Philippines in sponsoring a resolution which was tabled in the Security Council on 16th November and which is still under consideration there. The resolution is designed both to reduce tension in the sub-continent and to further the process of negotiation between the


parties, through the agency of the United Nations, on the specific issues raised in its earlier resolutions.

Mr. Donnelly: Is the hon. Member aware that the resolution of the United Nations is likely to mean very little except to incur the maximum of feeling and the minimum of effect? Why is it so necessary for Her Majesty's Government to take a specific view about this difficult problem when they are so careful to avoid taking any view when any other Commonwealth country is involved and whenever South African affairs are before the United Nations?

Mr. Alport: I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's point as to the nature of the resolution, which was sponsored by the United States, ourselves and other members of the Security Council. I would only add that a proposal is not bad simply because it does not please both sides.

Mr. Donnelly: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Basutoland (Industrial and Commercial Development)

Mr. Brockway: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations if he will consider the appointment of a commission of inquiry into the development of light industry and commercial and entertainment undertakings in Basutoland.

Mr. Alport: The possibilities of further commercial development especially amongst the Basuto are already well recognised. As far as light industry is concerned, development largely depends upon the provision of power and possible hydro-electric schemes are under investigation. At present certain possibilities which are not dependent upon large-scale supplies of power are being examined in consultation with the Colonial Development Corporation. I am not clear what the hon. Member has in mind when he refers to entertainment undertakings.

Mr. Brockway: While appreciating part of the hon. Gentleman's reply, may I ask him whether, in view of the recent decision of the Government of the Union of South Africa that Basutos may not cross the frontier, either for shopping or

entertainment, it is not desirable that these should be provided in Basutoland itself?

Mr. Alport: I did confirm in my original answer that the possibility of further commercial development especially among Basutos is well recognised. If the hon. Gentleman has any particular proposal and any information in regard to entertainment facilities, I shall be only too glad to have them.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

School Meals

Dr. King: asked the Minister of Education figures showing the number of children taking school meals in October, 1956, and at the latest available date since the increased charge.

The Minister of Education (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): 3,058,702 last autumn, but the influenza epidemic has so far prevented our getting the comparable figure for this year.

Dr. King: While welcoming the new Minister of Education to the Dispatch Box and wishing him well in his office, may I ask whether he is aware that the information for which I have asked him is now able to be supplied by a number of local education authorities? My own, in Hampshire, reveals that there has been a decline of 12 per cent. in the number of children taking school meals. If the figures, when we get them, reveal a decline all over the country in the number of children taking part in this very important service, will the Minister consult his right hon. Friends to see what can be done?

Mr. Lloyd: This is a very important service, but my own information from some authorities does not indicate anything like the decline mentioned by the hon. Member.

Church Schools

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Education if he is aware that the £80,000 contribution by parents towards a school in the diocese of Salford costing £165,000 would, because of new interest rates, mean their having ultimately to provide £200,000; and if he will consider reducing the additional burdens imposed in this and other cases.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: The hon. Member has been good enough to give me the name of the school he has in mind, and my inquiries show that the school was largely completed before the increase in Bank Rate. The Governors did not apply to me for a loan.

Mr. Allaun: Does not the fantastic increase in interest rates mean that parents who, by voluntary financial sacrifice have been paying twice for education, will now have to pay three times? Does not this make a difficult task impossible?

Mr. Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman is raising a rather wider point than in his original Question, but it may be useful if it gives me the opportunity to emphasise that by applying to the Ministry for a loan about 25 per cent. of this increased burden could have been saved.

Mr. Allaun: asked the Minister of Education, in view of the recent increase in the Bank Rate, if he will consider providing loans at low interest rates for the school building programme, or, alternatively, raising to 75 per cent. the present Government grant of 50 per cent. of the cost of building church schools.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: No, Sir.

Mr. Allaun: Does not the Minister agree that an entirely new situation has been created which makes the burden unfair, unanticipated and intolerable? What are these parents to do?

Mr. Lloyd: That is a broader question, which I agree is a serious one.

Mr. H. Fraser: Quite apart from the 7 per cent. Bank Rate, would not my right hon. Friend consider the question of church schools in a new light? It is almost impossible for the church communities to go on suffering under the disabilities they have under the Act of 1944. After this passage of time, surely there is need of revision? It would be a bad thing if this matter were to become a political issue. Would not my right hon. Friend consider meeting deputations from both sides of the House on this issue of the revision of the Act of 1944?

Mr. Lloyd: I could not decline to receive a deputation. In fact, I have already had discussions with some of the members of the hierarchy on this subject.

Maintenance Allowances

Dr. King: asked the Minister of Education if he will reconsider his decision not to implement the recommendations by his working party on maintenance allowances for children in secondary schools over school-leaving age.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: No, Sir.

Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that his predecessor was advised by a group of experts in a report called "Early Leavers on the importance of making provision for more children to stay on at grammar schools, that his predecessor was also advised by a group of experts to make much more generous provision for maintenance allowances for these children than so far he has been willing to grant? While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for what he has done, may I ask if he will look again at this question?

Mr. Lloyd: The working party to which the hon. Member has referred had among its members many distinguished educationists. My predecessor did in fact adopt most of its recommendations. He was not, however, able to adopt this particular one, but I think it fair to say that what he did was to make the cost of these allowances two-and-a-half to three times higher than it had ever been before.

Mr. M. Stewart: Is it not the case that the allowances at present paid are very much below the recommendation of the working party and that a new approach to the recommendations of the working party might do much to encourage children to stay longer at school?

Mr. Lloyd: Naturally it is a question of degree. Having read the report, I think it fair to say that one can take different views of the very complicated points that were considered.

School Building Programme

Dr. King: asked the Minister of Education the number of schools already built, and those already started, for the reorganisation of rural post-primary education, and the number of schools still necessary to complete the five-year plan.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: 33, 147 and 226, respectively.

Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that tile best job that was done in this House by his last predecessor but one was to announce the five-year programme for the elimination of the all-age school in the countryside, and that at present local authorities which have been carrying on with that plan have had soma; of the schools he has mentioned this afternoon cut out of their programmes? Will he give this matter his very earnest consideration?

Mr. Lloyd: I can give the hon. Member the consolation that, of the 226 schools in the last category, 82 are still on the approved building programme, and so can be started.

Tuberculosis

Mr. Hastings: asked the Minister of Education what instructions he has given to local education authorities as to the examination for active pulmonary tuberculosis of those engaged in the preparation and serving of school meals.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Circular 248 dealt with this subject and I am sending the hon. Member a copy.

Mr. Hastings: Has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been draw to a case in Clitheroe in which a domestic worker in the school meals service, suffering from active tuberculosis, apparently caused this disease in one form or another certainly in thirteen school children and possibly in thirty? Would he take special care to see that those engaged in the preparation of school meals are healthy people?

Mr. Lloyd: Certainly. I will examine this matter further, and I shall be grateful for details, which perhaps the hon. Member will give me. I should also tell the House that I will now look at this circular again in the light of a Report by the Standing Tuberculosis Advisory Committee of the Central Health Service which we have just received.

Dr. Summerskill: In view of the vulnerability of schoolchildren to this disease, would the Minister give an undertaking that all those who are engaged in handling school meals will be examined?

Mr. Lloyd: I should not like to do that without consultations, but I see the importance of what the hon. Lady suggests and I will examine it carefully and let her know the result.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT'S ECONOMIC POLICY

Mr. Lewis: asked the Prime Minister why he will not move to appoint a Select Committee or some such form of independent committee to inquire into allegations and charges that labour and trade union leaders have been guilty of sabotage against the Government's economic policy, and to report on what action, legal or otherwise, should be taken against those found guilty of such sabotage.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): Because no good reason for doing so has been advanced.

Mr. Lewis: Is not this very unfair? False charges and allegations are made against many honourable men who are doing much for the good of this country. When a political leader feels that an imputation is alleged against him he writes a letter, and he can have an inquiry. If Mr. Frank Cousins writes a letter similar to that written by Mr. Poole, can he have an inquiry?

The Prime Minister: In the first place, I think the hon. Member misquoted the speech which my noble Friend made. He has left out the phrase "more extreme leaders".

Mr. Lewis: The Prime Minister has said that I misquoted the speech of his noble Friend. I never quoted the speech of his noble Friend: but it was his noble Friend who named Mr. Frank Cousins.

The Prime Minister: I understood that this was a reference to a speech and, in the way in which it appears on the Order Paper, it says:
charges that labour and trade union leaders…
I was only pointing out that the words of the speech were not the same and, as it was obviously meant to be a quotation from the speech of my noble Friend or a reference to the speech, it should have been quoted correctly. In any, case, I am quite sure that, on reflection, the hon. Member would feel that this proposal he has made is not one which would be suitable or wise for me to follow.
I must say, in passing, that if the hon. Member relies on the word "sabotage", it was clearly used in a metaphorical and not a literal sense. For instance, I might


say that the hon. Member is sabotaging the system of Parliamentary Questions. That would not mean that he was actually using violence but was undermining the system.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is the Prime Minister aware that most of us are not in the habit of taking very seriously anything the Lord President of the Council says?

The Prime Minister: In that case, must ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will exercise some authority over his followers, who seem to take this matter au grand serieux.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMONWEALTH CENTRAL BANK

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that the sterling area system is the basis of Commonwealth economic relations, he will initiate discussions with the other Commonwealth Prime Ministers with a view to the establishment of a Commonwealth Central Bank.

The Prime Minister: The importance of the sterling area system is well recognised and its problems are regularly reviewed by Commonwealth Ministers. The establishment of a Commonwealth Central Bank raises far wider considerations than can conveniently be dealt with by question and answer.

Mr. Henderson: Could not the Prime Minister agree that it is becoming highly desirable that this basis of Commonwealth relations should be strengthened, having regard to many developments taking place throughout the world? Would not the establishment of such a bank be a definite contribution to such an objective?

The Prime Minister: I am sure the right hon. and learned Member would agree that this is a very large issue connected with the management of the whole sterling area. I am not clear, for instance, whether he has in mind a bank of issue or an investment bank.

Oral Answers to Questions — OFFICIAL WAR HISTORY (COMBINED OPERATIONS)

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: asked the Prime Minister whether it is his policy that the Official History of the War

should include a volume on the works of the Combined Operations Command and of the Combined Operations Headquarters.

The Prime Minister: The scheme of the Official Military Histories was laid down in 1946: it did not provide for a separate volume on Combined Operations. I see no reason to extend at this date the scope of the scheme.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: While appreciating the reasons for that decision, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is satisfied that the wonderful achievements of this country in the field of Combined Operations in the last war will in fact be adequately and accurately recorded? May I also ask him whether full facilities will be given to any private individual who may be willing to undertake an unofficial history?

The Prime Minister: The scheme of the Histories is a very large one. There are to be 31 volumes, comprising six on grand strategy and a number of separate campaign volumes. Combined operations will receive full notice both in the strategy and campaigns volumes. I feel, and those who advise me feel, that if we were to have a special volume on this particular aspect of operations we might be driven to having volumes on Fighter Command, Bomber Command, the antisubmarine war, jungle operations and other special parts of operations. It would be better that those should come out in the general history which is being prepared.

Mr. Strachey: Does not the Prime Minister deplore the combined operation which the ex-military chiefs appear to be undertaking against the reputation of the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill)?

Hon. Members: Answer.

The Prime Minister: I do not know what the right hon. Member is talking about. I made some observations at the Guildhall about that.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE EMPLOYEES (DEPUTATION)

Mr. Lewis: asked the Prime Minister what requests he has received from the staff associations and trade unions in


the hospital services to receive a deputation from these organisations; what was the nature of his reply; and when he expects to receive this deputation.

The Prime Minister: A request to receive a deputation from the Staff Side of the General Council of the Whitley Councils for the Health Services reached me by post yesterday. I am considering my reply.

Mr. Lewis: In view of the need for Government economy and the need to save time and labour, can the Prime Minister save the time of his staff and expense by announcing now that he will meet the deputation?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I have received a long letter from the Secretary to which I thought it would be courteous for me to make a reply. I think it would be very discourteous for me to publish the reply before it reaches them. I hope by arrangement with the Secretary the normal procedure will be followed and that their letter and my reply will be published simultaneously.

Mr. Robens: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give more than favourable consideration to this request, as it raises some rather larger issues than the particular one? Is he not aware that there is some grave doubt in the minds of many eminent trade unionists about the position of the Government vis-à-vis Whitley Councils and that I feel if he were to meet the deputation he might clear up a great deal of misunderstanding?

The Prime Minister: I would take all that into account.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED KINGDOM AND FRANCE (DISCUSSIONS)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Prime Minister, in view of the official protest by the French Government to Her Majesty's Government regarding delivery of arms to Tunisia, if he will consider inviting M. Gaillard to this country to discuss the various points of disagreement between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the French Republic.

The Prime Minister: With permission. I will answer this Question at the end of Questions.

At the end of Questions:

The Prime Minister: With permission, I will now answer Question No. 49.
In the light of recent developments in North Africa and the coming North Atlantic Treaty Organisation meeting, I have accepted an invitation to visit Paris on 25th November to discuss with the French Prime Minister matters of common interest to our two Governments. I will be accompanied by my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business for next week?

The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 25TH NOVEMBER—It is proposed to afford time for a debate on the Opposition Motion relating to the Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation Draft Order in Council.
Motion to refer the Land Drainage (Scotland) Bill to the Scottish Standing Committee for Second Reading.
TUESDAY, 26TH NOVEMBER—Debate on the Annual Reports and Accounts of the Gas and Electricity Industries for 1956–57.
Committee stage of Ways and Means. Resolution relating to Post Office Finance.
WEDNESDAY, 27TH NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the isle of Man Bill.
Consideration of the Motion to approve the Draft National Assistance (Determination of Need) Amendment Regulations.
Report stage of the Ways and Means Resolution relating to Post Office Finance, when the necessary Bill will be brought in.
THURSDAY, 28TH NOVEMBER—My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will move a Motion for an Address to Her Majesty relating to the erection of a memorial to the late Earl of Balfour.
Second Reading of the New Towns Bill and Committee stage of the necessary


Money Resolution, which it is hoped to obtain by 9 o'clock.
Committee and remaining stages of the Public Works Loans Bill.
FRIDAY, 29TH NOVEMBER—Consideration of Private Members' Motions.

Mr. Gaitskell: Am I right in assuming that the debate on the Opposition Motion relating to the Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation Draft Order in Council is intended to last all day?

Mr. Butler: I think it will occupy the majority of the time.

Dame Irene Ward: Has my right hon. Friend noticed the Motion standing in my name? I am not asking that there should be time to debate the Motion, in view of the fact that the B.B.C. has apologised for the error and intends to make an announcement on Radio Newsreel correcting its mistake.

[That in the opinion of this House it was regrettable that, in the Radio Newsreel Programme on Sunday, 17th November, the narrator, in referring to the dispute between certain employees in the National Health Service and the Minister of Health, made a factual mis-statement by saying that the Minister of Health had recently refused to approve a wage increase which the appropriate arbitration board had recommended; and that it is the opinion of this House that, in order to maintain its reputation for accuracy and unbiased reporting, the British Broadcasting Corporation should make a public withdrawal of the words "arbitration board" and substitute "which the appropriate Whitley Council, though not unanimously, had recommended".]

Mr. Wigg: May I ask a question not arising directly out of the business for the coming week? Statutory Instruments have been tabled in connection with the continuation of the Army Act and the Air Force Act. This is a new procedure which is coming into operation for the first time this year. These Statutory Instruments arise out of recommendations of the Select Committee. Would you be kind enough, Mr. Speaker, to give consideration to the form which the debate should take when the Government decide that these Motions should be debated? Would you bear in mind that although this procedure will meet the convenience of the

Government, at the time the Government gave an undertaking that they would have regard to the rights of back benchers and the need for a full discussion of both the Army and the Air Force Acts?
Would you also bear in mind that it is very desirable indeed that there should be not one debate on the two Instruments, but two separate debates?

Mr. Speaker: I will bear in mind what the hon. Member has said. As I understood that these Motions might be taken next week—I now see that that is not to be the case—I thought it might be for the convenience of the House if I said, quite shortly, that I consider that on the Motion to continue the Army Act it will be competent to discuss anything which is in the Act. The same remark applies, of course, to the Air Force Act.
If hon. Members look at the Act which it is proposed to continue and make a Third Reading speech upon it, as if it were a Bill before the House for Third Reading, I am perfectly certain that they will be in order. I say that now because it may be of assistance to hon. Members in framing the speeches which they wish to make.
Answering the other question, how it is to be taken is within the control of the House, but I will certainly consider what the hon. Member said.

Mr. Strachey: Does your Ruling mean, Mr. Speaker, that it would not be in order to discuss the general future of the Army and the general welfare and conditions of the Army unless the remarks strictly related to a specific Section of the Act? That would narrow our discussion, which was intended to be in lieu of the annual discussion on the Army Act. If we took it too narrowly I think that the intention which was expressed when the new procedure was adopted might be rather narrowed.

Mr. Speaker: I am not prepared to say in advance whether anything which any hon. Member wants to say will be out of order. That would be giving much too precise a Ruling at so long a time in advance of the fact. The general idea is as I have stated it: it is a proposal to continue this Act, which is a very large Act, embracing a great number of things. I imagine that is the general line which the discussion should take, but, of course, there is some time in which to consider


the matter further and if any hon. Member wishes to make representations to me as to what should be allowed and what should not, I have plenty of time to consider them and I will come to the best decision I can.

Mr. Wigg: May I make a point in connection with the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey)? This debate will not be in substitution of the Army Estimates debate. The Select Committee's recommendation was quite clear. It is in addition to the debate on the Army Estimates.

Mr. Speaker: This new procedure was adopted by the Act of 1955, which followed a very patient and laborious examination by the Select Committee, lasting, I think, over two-and-a-half years.

Mr. Bellenger: If the debate is limited to a Third Reading debate, as it were, it would be out of order to make any amendments. I believe that was provided for when the original investigation took place, but I urge on the Government that there may be occasions when it might be very necessary, in the interests of the Government themselves, to have some amendments to the Army Act. I do not know what is the procedure for doing that. Perhaps you could tell us. Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: According to the Act, the Army Act lasts for one year unless it is continued by a Resolution like this, but

it lasts for only five years as an Act and then has to be re-enacted, with such amendments and improvements as the passage of time shows to be necessary. In other words, instead of being re-enacted annually it is re-enacted in full every five years. That was the decision adopted in the Act.

Mr. Bellenger: May I make the point quite clear? It will be absolutely impossible for the House to alter the Army Act at all under the period of five years?

Mr. Speaker: Except by a Bill for that purpose.

Mr. A. Henderson: As one who sat on that Select Committee, may I say that it is definitely laid down and was agreed to by all who sat on the Committee that we should recommend that the Army Act and the Air Force Act should be continued, as you have said, Mr. Speaker, for five years, thus obviating the necessity for any amendment within that period.

Mr. Speaker: I think that that was clearly the intention of the Select Committee and of Parliament when it passed the Act.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

Orders of the Day — EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to continue certain expiring laws, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of such expenses as may be occasioned by the continuance of the Population (Statistics) Act, 1938, until the thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-eight; and of the Rent of Furnished Houses Control (Scotland) Act, 1943, the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, 1946, and the Licensing Act, 1953, until the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and fifty-nine, being expenses which under any Act are to be provided out of such moneys.

Resolution agreed to.

Orders of the Day — EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Clauses 1 and 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule.

3.40 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: I beg to move, in page 3, to leave out lines 7 and 8.
The object of the Amendment is to delete from the Schedule the reference to the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act, 1919. The Amendment provides the Committee and myself with an opportunity of considering the whole of the present law relating to aliens. It is a matter of some significance that, whereas we have about 400,000 aliens living in this country, and a certain number coming here every year, nevertheless the law relating to them has not yet been placed on the Statute Book in any permanent form but is still subject to the renewal, year by year, of an Act which was passed as long ago as 1919.
I suppose it is because the provisions of that Act and the Orders made under it are regarded as being so unsatisfactory that the Home Office does not dare to ask Parliament to renew them for more than a year at a time. On previous occasions hon. Members on this side of the Committee have urged that the time

has now arrived, and is, indeed, long overdue, when the whole of the law relating to aliens should be placed upon a more satisfactory basis.
Before the First World War this country enjoyed a high and cherished reputation for granting asylum to political refugees and all others, regardless of their country of origin and the country from which they came. We were conspicuous in our efforts to provide a home for immigrants wishing to come here. Those conditions were inevitably temporarily suspended on the outbreak of war in 1914. A temporary Measure had to be passed in 1919, but since then, apart from certain modifications of detail with regard to the law relating to aliens, the position remains in a most unsatisfactory form.
The chief charge which any liberal community would make against the present law is that it places in the hands of the Home Office complete arbitrary powers both with regard to the admission and the deportation of any alien into or from this country. Those powers of deportation operate not merely with regard to aliens who are here temporarily as visitors but also to aliens who may have been here for many years, who may well have established a domicile here, married and brought up a family. In talking of aliens we are talking not merely of temporary visitors; we are talking of nearly 500,000 people who have not the status of British nationality although they enjoy the benefits of living here and perform all the ordinary obligations of citizens.
I do not want to traverse some of the considerations which have been placed before the Committee in previous years when this Measure has come up for review. I want, however, to make two or three specific points to which I hope we shall have a reply from the Home Office. First, since the Home Office exercises complete discretion about the admission of or refusal of admission of aliens, may we know upon what principles that discretion is at present exercised?
One of the difficulties which particularly press upon those who from time to time have to advise persons wishing to come here, or British subjects wishing to employ aliens, is the difficulty of knowing what principles govern the policy of the Home Office. Is it true that anybody wishing to come here to take up employment in an industry where no British


labour is obtainable can obtain Home Office permission, and that a British employer wishing to augment his labour supply can obtain permission from the Home Office to bring in one or more aliens?
Is there any particular category of occupations in which it is easier, or more difficult, for Home Office permission to be obtained? What is the present attitude of the Home Office towards the admission of persons to undertake domestic service? Is the Home Office receiving a large number of applications on behalf of employers for alien workpeople of that class? If so, does the Home Office apply the same principles regardless of the country of origin of the intended aliens?
3.45 p.m.
I would also to know what are the present principles governing the deportation of aliens. I suppose that in recent years hon. Members on both sides have had the experience of being consulted by aliens who have been requested, for one reason or another, to leave this country. A number of cases have been brought to my attention by those living in my constituency, and I have often had occasion to make representations about them. On other occasions I have deliberately refrained from making representations to the Home Office, because there has already been a refusal and I felt that there were no good grounds for making further representations.
But there have been a number of borderline cases in which, after I have made detailed inquiries, I have felt satisfied—as have others—that there was a very good ground for certain aliens not being deported. One of the difficulties that one has always found in such cases is that the Home Office declines to give reasons for its decision. I am riot making any wild accusations against the Home Office. I believe that it exercises and applies human considerations and does its best in dealing with each case. But I am convinced that, with the best will in the world, there must be cases where mistakes are made. The Home Office is not infallible. This complete arbitrary power is not literally a matter of life and death for a particular alien, but is very often a matter which affects not only the individual concerned but relatives he may have to leave behind if he is deported; and it is causing the greatest anguish, misery and hardship.
I suggest to the Home Office that this is not a state of affairs which we ought to tolerate any longer. We have moved out of the set of circumstances in which security considerations are uppermost. I would have thought that the emphasis should now he on the principles and declarations of human rights which this country has signed and of which the aliens charter, in its present form, is a violation. I therefore suggest that, so that justice is not only done but is seen to be done, a tribunal should be set up to inquire into cases in which there is reasonable doubt, supported, if necessary, by a number of hon. Members, and consider whether or not the decision of the Home Office is justified.
Before passing to another matter, may I say that I hope that the Home Office spokesman will be able to give sonic figures so that we may judge the size of this problem, because hon. Members hear only of isolated individual cases. May we know how many applications by aliens, or applications on behalf of aliens, for permission to come into this country have been refused during any convenient period—say, over the last twelve months? May we know how many aliens have been deported by compulsion or by persuasion or, shall we say, contrary to representations made by them or on their behalf?
I now pass to another matter. We have heard a great deal in recent debates about conditions of admission and deportation. It is time that we considered the restrictive conditions which are imposed upon aliens as a class, restrictions which often amount to indignities and, to say the least, considerable discrimination. I suppose that one of the most significant changes that has occurred in the law relating to aliens since we last discussed the matter is that there has been published the Aliens Order No. 597, of 1957, which is now part of the law under the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act. This Order makes significant changes—which, as far as I know, have not heretofore received very much attention in the House, in the Press, or elsewhere—in the previous practice, particularly with regard to the obligations relating to hotel registers.
I do not know whether you are aware, Sir Charles, that for many years past the sanction for the practice which has required all of us, whenever we stay in a hotel, to write our names in the hotel


register has curiously enough been derived from the Aliens Act and the Orders made under the Aliens Act. You will be happy to know, Sir Charles, and I am sure that a great many other people will, too, that what I have always regarded as an unnecessary indignity on British subjects is now removed. There is no longer any necessity for a British subject when he stays at a hotel to write his name in the hotel register. I hope that that fact will be made widely known, because I am sure that a great many hotel keepers and others still think that it is necessary to require visitors to hotels to write their names in the register.
The Aliens Order to which I have referred removes that quite unnecessary obligation. In its stead, it provides that in future anybody who visits a hotel for the purpose of staying the night shall merely inform the keeper of the premises of his name and nationality. He can do that orally or through somebody on his behalf. There is no need for him to register. I have never understood why the need existed, but it has been part of the Act.
The curious thing is that this requirement was apparently thought necessary for the proper protection of aliens, or the proper supervision of aliens, because we find in the new Order that this obligation is still preserved for aliens. There is not the same pre-existing requirement, but a slightly different requirement to which I will come in a moment.
There is an obligation on an alien—that is to say, any non-British subject, whether he be American, French, or any other nationality—to give a great deal of information if he spends the night in a hotel by himself, with his wife or with a member of his family. He has to inform the hotel proprietor of the number and place of issue of his registration certificate or his passport. He has to state his next destination and his full address.
As far as I understand, all that has to be done in writing. It might well be thought that this is a quite unnecessary discrimination against aliens. I hope that we shall hear from the Home Office what is the object of preserving this discriminatory obligation against them and to what extent any attempt is made to see that the liability is enforced.
4.0 p.m.
For the first time an entirely new requirement has been inserted in this 1957 Order with regard to the particulars which an alien has to give. Under paragraph 6 of the Schedule an alien is now required, in addition to all the other particulars that he gives to the hotel proprietor, to state his matrimonial status. According to the Order, he has to state whether he is married or single. It is not quite clear to me what he has to state if, for example, he is widowed or divorced. He might then be in a difficulty.
The curious thing is that this aliens legislation is now used for the purpose of requiring any non-British subject staying in a hotel to go and tell the hotel proprietor whether he is married or single. What is the object of that? It has not been necessary for the last thirty years. What useful information does that give to the hotel proprietor or to the police or to the Home Office, or to anybody else? Is it intended merely as some special indignity upon aliens? Is it intended that this shall be scrupulously enforced in future?
One knows that from time to time matrimonial irregularities take place in hotels, and it may well be that it is a good thing if it is part of the policy of the Home Office to take some steps in that direction, but if so, is it appropriate that it should be confined to aliens? This is only one of the requirements of a quite discriminatory nature which one discovers as a result of studying the long list of regulations which are imposed in this country on aliens.
I would have thought that if we are to have a special code of this kind, the time has come when we ought to consider what the law relating to aliens should be so that it can be placed on a permanent basis and not left for renewal year by year. It seems to me that the fact that we deal with it year by year invites the comment that it is unsatisfactory as it stands, and that it ought not to be treated as permanent. It has been criticised not only in this country as containing many injustices and provisions contrary to the declaration of human rights. It has been the subject of international criticism because it is felt that we, in our law relating to aliens, fall below the standard of some other civilised countries.
For those reasons I am moving this Amendment.

Mr. Barnett Janner: I support the Amendment which has been so ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher).
When we deal with a subject of this kind, we do not realise how grave a subject it is for so many people, and particularly for so many who are thrown from pillar to post throughout the world and many of whom have nobody at all to look after their interests.
It is not just the plain statement of facts and figures, which really convey very little in a matter of this description, with which I am concerned. It is the human element that is involved, and it is, I think, the desire of human people to be humane towards those who have no other access to redress for any grievances they may have. In other words, we are concerned with the remedying of man's inhumanity to man. I put it as high as that.
I have very frequently listened to, and indeed, participated in, debates on human rights, and when one is faced with the real anguish and the desperate helplessness of human beings one begins to see that even if the number of persons involved were not so large, as indeed it is, each case has in itself the possibilities of a human tragedy which are practically indescribable. I know that the Minister is a humane person.

Mr. R. J. Mellish: Which one?

Mr. Janner: I think that the Secretary of State and both Joint Under-Secretaries are humane. I say, with experience of some of the cases that they have dealt with, that they are humane. But I think that sometimes they do not sit down long enough to enable them to understand the consequences of some of the actions that they take. That is really at the root of the trouble that we are discussing today.
It is in the hope that the Minister and his hon. Friends will realise that the Act as it stands indicates a wrong kind of approach to these matters that I trust they will try to see these matters from a new angle and see what can be done to remove the unhappy standard which is set, or

appears to be set, by the terms of the Act.
Let me take illustrations of recent incidents. We know that a large number of people were thrown out of Egypt. Let me talk about those people, since I know them, perhaps, a little more intimately than do others. Among the large number of people who, without redress, were expelled from Egypt, the majority were, I think, Jewish. I have met many of them and their circumstances have often been desperate. I agree that the Home Office has dealt very reasonably and, indeed, sympathetically with a large number of these persons, but lines have been drawn which appear to be reasonable and just, but which, in fact, it examined in the sense that I have attempted to approach this subject, can clearly be shown to be entirely unreasonable.
There are some people with British affiliations who are not permitted to reside in this country. The Hone Office has not taken account of the fact that many Jewish refugees have foreign passports but no connection with the countries whose passports they hold. In many cases the passports may have been quite proper travel documents, but in almost every case the refugees were born in Egypt and lived there since birth. Many are now refugees in France, Italy. Switzerland, or Greece. The majority have gone to Israel, where they have been welcomed with open arms, but, for reasons which can be fully explained in each case, not all of them have been able to go.
I want to give some examples in which applications to reside in this country have been refused. One concerns a doctor who is stateless. He has been allowed to obtain an appointment as a house surgeon in a hospital where he hopes to qualify for a British degree. His wife is working in Paris and, although she is stateless, the Home Office will not permit her to join her husband here. She is a capable woman, who would be able to work and not be a charge on public funds. Why has she been refused? Is it because the Home Office authorities think that they must refuse in some cases? That is a danger of the law as it stands at present, because no doubt the Joint Under-Secretary, and others in the Home Office, think that


they must refuse in some cases. Why should they refuse unless there is a good reason for doing so?

The Chairman: The scope of the debate is not that wide. Illustrations may be given to show why a law should not be continued, but to ask questions about individual cases would be out of order, and if the Home Office spokesmen were to try to reply to them I should have to stop them.

Mr. Janner: It places them in a difficulty—

Mr. Charles Pannell: On a point of order. I have been listening very carefully to my hon. Friend and I judge that he asked a rhetorical question. When is a rhetorical question out of order? He gave an example and asked why a refusal had been given.

The Chairman: I did not think that it was rhetorical. The hon. Member told us about a doctor whose wife was working in Paris and I thought that it was a case about which the Home Office was informed.

Mr. Mellish: On a point of order. May I call your attention, Sir Charles, to the fact that the Joint Under-Secretary sneered when you gave your Ruling and took great delight in the fact that she will not have to reply. In a case of this character, where a great deal of humanity is involved, can we not have a little softness from hon. Members on the Front Bench opposite?

The Chairman: The Joint Under-Secretary cannot be surprised, because I told her before the debate began that if she tried to deal with individual cases I would stop her.

Mr. Janner: I do not want to take advantage of the situation. I was illustrating reasons for my opinion that the present Act should not be continued.
Another case concerns a father and mother who were expelled from Egypt and who have Italian passports. Their three children are continuing their education in Nottingham. The Home Office has refused to allow the mother to set up a home in Nottingham for the children, although she is financially able to maintain them. As it stands, the law

does not permit those performing these duties to understand what the right approach to these matters should be. No doubt the authorities responsible believe that persecution in Egypt has stopped and that, therefore, there is no reason why stateless persons should be brought here. However, persecution in Egypt has not stopped and economic pressures are being brought to bear on people whom we regard as aliens and whose position, in many respects, is desperate.
4.15 p.m.
Another illustration concerns about 10,000 European refugees who are still in China. In giving these examples I do not intend to be offensive. We are anxious that to improve the situation and not to take political advantage of it. As I said earlier, we are dealing with human beings who are being driven from pillar to post. Many of the 10,000 European refugees in China fled from the Russian revolution. Others found in China a haven from Nazi persecution. Nearly all of them now find it almost impossible to continue to live in that country, their means of earning a livelihood having been taken away.
Among those unhappy people are some aged and sick whose only wish is to spend the short time still left to them in peace and freedom. A number of Governments in Europe, particularly those of the Scandinavian countries and of Switzerland, have agreed to admit a number of these helpless people. I am sorry to hear that our country has not followed that splendid example. It is not a matter of admitting thousands of people. The admission of 50 or 100 at the most would be a gesture in the right direction and would bring considerable hope into the hearts of those suffering people.
As a matter of principle, the present law is contrary to the spirit and ideals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I trust that the Declaration is still the basis of our policy. Referring to the rights of asylum, in Article 14. the Declaration says:
Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
I admit that that is a rather vague term. "The right to seek asylum" is obviously a meaningless expression. "The right to enjoy asylum" is not quite so empty a phrase, but the exact meaning of the word


"enjoy" is open to doubt. The crucial issue is the right of the person seeking asylum to be granted that asylum. Unfortunately, the Declaration remains silent on that point, but some aspects of the present law indicate that the Government are not prepared fully to support such a proposal.
The whole problem of the right of asylum is again before the United Nations and before it is further considered I should like the Government to take action which will show that the principle of the right of asylum by the granting of asylum will have our support. A non-Governmental organisation of which I have the honour to be co-chairman has stressed this point. The French Government has accepted it. I hope that the hon. Lady will this afternoon give us the satisfaction of hearing her say that she will consider the withdrawal of this legislation. As my hon. Friend has said, whatever may come in the future from a different direction can be considered when the time arises.
I strongly appeal to the hon. Lady that in our actions we should give a clear indication to our colleagues and friends in the United Nations, in the Social and Economic Council, and during our activities concerning the Declaratior of Human Rights, that we are showing a lead and will not stand in the way of the acceptance of such principles by other nations.
I put it on that high standard and I appeal to the Government to treat it in that way and not simply to regard themselves as dealing only with an individual who is of no concern. People sometimes become blasé in the courts and do not realise that the individual who comes before them is himself an entity who should be given consideration, the reason being that many similar cases have been dealt with before. I ask the hon. Lady to accept what I have said in the spirit in which it has been given and to consider the points I have raised.

Mr. Ray Mawby: I do not wish to take up much of the time of the Committee, but there is one point that ought to be made. I am basing my remarks on the assumption that the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), who moved the Amendment, and the hon. Member for Leicester. North-West (Mr. Janner), who supported it, will press the Amendment. If they do not, my words probably will not carry much weight.
My first question is to ask whether there has been any consultation with the T.U.C. on this matter, which involves a great number of problems if there is to be a sudden complete relaxation on immigration into this country.

Mr Janner: The hon. Member has. I think, misunderstood what my hon. Friend said and what I had in mind. We said that the Act should go. Nobody suggests that there should not be some kind of restrictions. We say that the system should be entirely different.

Mr. Mawby: The way I was looking at it was that if the Amendment was carried we would be left with no restrictions at all. Naturally, we all wish our nation to play its full part, as it has done in its attitude towards, for example, the Hungarian refugees. We have taken on a public charge in training those people, with all the language problems, the different social conditions and everything else, and bringing them into contact with people in all sorts of industries so that they can work with their British colleagues happily and with safety. Everybody has worked together in trying to achieve that objective. The trade union movement has, as it usually does in these matters, done everything possible to try to absorb these people.
A number of people tend to say that the nation's problem could be satisfied by allowing a great number of aliens to come into the country and that they could do all sorts of jobs. There are, however, problems connected with these matters, particularly the language difficulty and the different social problems.
The fact that a number of unions have been considerably worried by the unregulated entry of colonials into the country shows that anxiety exists and that we should have some regulation whereby, by agreement, we do not depress the conditions of people engaged in particular industries and that when aliens do come into the country we will do everything possible to ensure that they are absorbed into society in the proper way.
My feeling is that, on the whole, the powers possessed by the Home Office, and operated through the Ministry of Labour, in issuing work permits and the rest are used in a reasonable manner. Borderline cases will always arise, but in the cases with which I have had contact


I have found the Departments concerned to use their powers reasonably.
I agree with the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West that the regulations governing the admission of aliens should be brought together into one Statute. The existing regulations are, however, fulfilling a necessary purpose and I feel that they should be continued until we can introduce a Statute which ensures that all our problems are catered for and that aliens can be absorbed into the country in such a way that they do not create any particular problem, such as that referred to at Question Time this afternoon, when the view was taken that a large number of aliens were involved in court cases.
I do not want to tar the whole of the aliens coming into the country with that brush. There are, however, black sheep—

Mr. Janner: That is not what was said. The question related to some of our own fellow nationals who come from the Commonwealth, which is something quite different. I listened carefully at Question Time and, as far as I remember, nobody suggested that it was a question of aliens. It referred solely to our own nationals.

Mr. Mawby: I accept the hon. Member's correction. The question has, however, been raised on other occasions concerning aliens as well as colonials who have been involved in difficulties. While I would not tar everybody with the same brush, there are, I think, black sheep in every family. We have our share of black sheep and, therefore, we must make certain that we do not have anyone else's share. For these reasons, I hope that the Amendment will not be pressed. If it is, I shall vote against it.

Mr. W. Griffiths: I suppose that the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Mawby) would agree that refugees who have been given a haven in Britain throughout our history have made a considerable contribution to the welfare of the country.

Mr. Mawby: indicated assent.

Mr. Griffiths: In the North, we still remember the contribution made by the Huguenots, for example, to the textile industry. I thought that in what the hon.

Member was saying I detected an undertone of criticism or apprehension which might perhaps be directed towards the influx of colonials, for example, from the West Indies.

Mr. Mawby: I was repeating points of view that were put by different trade unions. I believe that the Transport and General Workers' Union has passed a resolution to that effect. I was only pointing out that point of view, which, to a certain extent, I share.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. Griffiths: I think that the hon. Member is under a misapprehension. The attitude of the trade unions to this problem is quite clear and has been expressed by the T.U.C. It put no bar at all against these men coming here. There are hon. Friends of mine here who speak with far more authority on this matter than I. It is true that at branch level one meets resistance to the inclusion in the labour force of people from overseas, but it certainly cannot be laid at the door of the T.U.C., or of the leaders of the trade unions, that they place the slightest barrier in the way of workers from overseas.
I was going to refer specifically to the West Indians. I represent a constituency in the City of Manchester. There have been very large numbers of West Indians settling in that city, as, indeed, there have been in Birmingham, Coventry and other great industrial centres, in the industrial centres in particular. Sometimes people among whom they have settled have expressed some concern at the influx of those people, and we have pointed out to them that they are British citizens and have a perfect right to come to the United Kingdom.
As the hon. Member for Totnes mentioned the T.U.C., I would remind him that the view of the trade unions and, indeed, of the Labour Party on this matter is that there would be much less emigration from the West Indies than there is today if the standard of living there were a great deal higher than it is now.
It is a curious fact, however—I do not know whether the hon. Member knows it—that if he, for example, a citizen of the United Kingdom—

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): With great respect to you, Sir Robert, I would suggest that, under the rules of order, at least as I understand them, I cannot answer anything the hon. Member has said because, although this is a debate about aliens and not British subjects, all his comments have been about British subjects.

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Robert Grimston): I think that the hon. Member should restrict what he has to say about British subjects to remarks by way of illustration.

Mr. Griffiths: I did not know that your function in the Chair, Sir Robert, was in the charge of the Joint Under-Secretary of State. I am, of course, subject to your judgment. You did not stop me or correct me until the hon. Lady intervened. Is she apprehensive at what I am saying?
I was debating; I was following the hon. Member for Totnes in the debate; a refreshing change in the Chamber, I think, because far too often hon. Members in debate begin by saying, "If the hon. Member will forgive me, I will not follow his speech." I was trying to follow an hon. Member's speech, and the hon. Lady tried to correct me. Does she want debate to be so reduced that in the end hon. Members simply pass written speeches to one another across the Floor of the Chamber?
I was saying that the West Indians come here as British subjects, and I was about to say to the hon. Member for Totnes that it is a curious fact that if he or I wanted to go to a West Indian island it would be quite within the capacity of the governor to prohibit our entry and to refuse to give any reasons for his prohibiting our entry, and no hon. Member of this Committee could extract a reason from the Colonial Secretary, or from any other member of the Government. It is a curious state of affairs.
Now I bring myself more precisely to the Bill before us. I want to refer to the policy of the Home Department in the deportation of aliens. I enter into this debate with a good deal of trepidation. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) and my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) are regular exercisers

in this annual event and I have not intervened before in one of these annual debates. Probably as a result of their endeavours there has been some improvement in the matter of the right of appeal of prospective deportees in recent times. I understand that an alien threatened with deportation now has the right of appeal to the chief London magistrate.
However, there is an important exclusion from this right; there is a class who are excluded, and it is to that class and their exclusion I want to refer. They are the people who are deported without any right of appeal to the chief magistrate, or anyone else, on the ground that they are regarded as security risks.
Before I examine the question of this group, because I think this policy is wrong, I say right away for myself, and, I should think, for most of my right hon. and hon. Friends, that we are concerned as much as anyone else that State security should be proficient; but we believe—at least. I believe—that the balance has been tilted far too much against the individual on the pretext of defending the interests of the State. I shall seek to show how the procedure could be altered to remove the remote possibility under the most liberal Home Secretary of injustice being perpetrated upon an individual.
Under the existing law, I think the Committee will agree, the Home Secretary of the day makes an impact, through his personality, on the Administration. I have hopes of the present Home Secretary. I certainly have the most painful recollections of the illiberality of his predecessor. I hope that we shall have an opportunity in the near future of discussing his action in the matter of telephone tapping. However, I must not pursue that, or I shall be out of order.
I will, instead, give one or two examples of his treatment of aliens. A notable case, which received a certain amount of prominence in the Press and in the House of Commons, was the treatment of the Iraqi students, who were deported by Lord Tenby when he was Home Secretary on the ground that they were, presumably, security risks. Every possible investigation was made into their conduct, and it led everyone concerned—and everybody who knew the young men—to believe it was a ludicrous charge which was made against them.


They themselves certainly hotly denied it right to the end. Ministers sheltered themselves, as they do in these cases, whether in this Chamber or in their offices, behind the plea that it was not in the public interest to give any reason for the administrative action.
One of our difficulties in arguing about this group of aliens who are deported on security grounds without right of appeal is that we know very little of how the Home Secretary judges a security risk to exist among aliens. What we do know, however, is what the Government regard as a security risk among British citizens, whom I refer to by way of illustration, and it seems to me a reasonable assumption that the same tests, the same conditions are applied to aliens as are applied to British security risks.
Let us have a look at what they are. In approaching this, I start with certain assumptions. The first is that any Government have the right and the duty, to the best of their ability, to preserve State secrets, political and technical, from a foreign Power. One realises that in the modern world, in the lamentable state of international relationships, there are people who want these secrets and to get them they will employ mercenaries; and there are people whose political point of view leads them to believe that it is in the larger general world interest that those secrets should be given to other people. There are people like Fuchs and Nunn May, who were not mercenaries but who were prepared to give secrets away because of their political views. I agree that the State has a right to protect itself against those people.
Since 1948 we have had a system of so-called security procedure whereby people, first in the Civil Service, and subsequently in the Civil Service and in industry, have been deprived of their jobs solely on the ground that they held a minority political view which was believed might lead them to treacherous activities. One assumes that the Government make the same approach in the case of aliens. From the very beginning of security procedure here it was held that anybody who was accused of being a security risk should be given chapter and verse of the accusations made against him. In fact, there is overwhelming evidence available to us that this has never been the case.
The position today is rather worse than it was in 1948. It certainly has been extended by the present Government, particularly since the White Paper of March last year. The position now is that men and women will lose their jobs—and really this is nothing for the hon. Lady the Joint Under-Secretary to laugh at—on the basis of information secretly laid by informers of whom they do not know, without ever being given the chance of answering the accusation made against them and without any appeal that they can make to any tribunal or court of law.
If I am right in my assumption that precisely the same standards are applied to aliens—and if I am wrong perhaps the hon. Lady will tell the Committee—surely this opens up the possibility of monstrous injustices being perpetrated. It is already on the record, and indisputable, that people such as school teachers have been refused employment in Renfrewshire because they were married to former members of the Communist Party, and that people have been dismissed from employent as cashiers in Civil Service canteens because of a similar contact.
I give these illustrations to indicate what the Government regard as a security risk. I assure the Committee that these illustrations are correct, and I am sure that the majority on both sides of the Committee will agree that it is quite absurd to regard these people as holding sensitive posts and as a danger to the security of the State. We should like to have reason to believe that the same absurd standards, the same illiterate political judgments, are not applied by the same Ministers to aliens.
I submit that security would be better served if aliens accused of being security risks had the opportunity of a right of appeal to the chief magistrate for London, as is the case with people threatened with deportation, or, if that is not possible, to sonic other kind of tribunal. I should prefer a judicial tribunal where, though sometimes in the interests of the State the case might have to be heard in camera, in the event of an individual being accused of being a security risk and being threatened with deportation, he would be confronted by his accusers and shown the documents on which the charge was based. Learned members of the tribunal would have the


opportunity to examine the documents and the evidence.
If that were done, and I do not see why it should not be, we would reduce still further the number of cases in which a residual suspicion of injustice remains. The Executive should not be allowed to carry out an arbitrary act without having satisfied itself and the House of Commons that it has examined and taken every opportunity of minimising injustice. However dissatisfied the Joint Under-Secretary may have been with the earlier part of my speech, I hope that she will enlighten me and the Committee on these points relating to aliens.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Orbach: I find this subject, if not clouded in obscurity, at least mysterious and fantastic. Like other hon. Members, I have had, in the course of membership of the House of Commons, a considerable number of letters from aliens. I find that when I look into a case which requires very serious attention, and I write a letter giving all the circumstances, a reasonable request is refused, but when I feel that an alien is not on very strong grounds and I send a mere complementary slip to the Joint Under-Secretary I get a response granting the request which the alien may have made.
Can the Committee be told something about the arrangements that apply to the immigration of aliens into this country, their stay here and the procedure in their departure from an alien status to that of British citizens? I hope that I am in order in asking for answers to questions which I want to address to the Joint Under-Secretary. It seems to me that the time has surely arrived when all those who wish to come into this country should be treated very largely on the same basis, and that the matter ought not to be attended from time to time with an emotional appeal made to us which results in a great deal of heart-burning within a very few months of a particular incident.
I refer to the Hungarian refugees who came to this country. It was quite right that we should have accepted considerable numbers of Hungarians who were in such dire straits, but whatever applied to Hungarian refugees applies also, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) has said, to

those people who were expelled from Egypt. I have raised this matter before in debate and with the Joint Under-Secretary, but we cannot seem to get any understanding of exactly how these people are controlled and how their immigration into the country is controlled.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West quoted the Nottingham case. A couple of students were allowed to live in this country. One of the parents lived here, but the other parent was not allowed to join the family, although expelled from Egypt as a result of British action. The parent held the nationality of another State, but that was a completely fictitious arrangement arising from the old Ottoman law which prevented any person of the Jewish faith from being of Egyptian nationality.
I have raised half a dozen cases with the Joint Under-Secretary on which I can get no satisfaction, when it is only a question of a member of the family wanting to join others settled here who are British subjects. Sometimes I feel that we are concerned purely with the relation of the alien to the present tension in the world; in other words, that it is a question of the cold war. Yet that theory is upset when I remember a Pole who was expelled from his country, brought over here by Army command and, after the necessary five years, became a British subject. He applied for his wife and two children to join him in this country. The Polish Government said that they could go, that they were happy to allow the family to join the father and the husband. The Under-Secretary said that the wife could come, but not the two children.
I find that difficult to understand. It is true that the children are over 21 years of age and perhaps we ought not to give them the key to the door but should kick them out of the door. We might even refuse them on the grounds that they would be a drag on the market here, but they are technicians, both highly trained, one in architecture and one in engineering. Both have passed through gymnasium and high school and university in Poland and, when they adopt the same nationality as their father, I should think that in due course they would become effective, valuable, British citizens.
If I turn from those people it is because I wonder whether in this question, and


in the question of the naturalisation of the alien, no real reason can be given for refusing naturalisation to the man we want to absorb, who has lived here, worked here, satisfied our laws, says that he would like to be a British citizen, makes application and gets people to act as referees. Even Members of Parliament are refused the reason why somebody who might be a future constituent is not allowed to become a British citizen. The referees may be of the highest calibre, they may have known the individual for five years or more, yet their word is of no account. I ask the hon. Lady whether the word of the police officer, who sees the applicant for half an hour or an hour, is of more consequence than all the other persons concerned who have written in and authenticated the application made by the alien?
I hope that that is not the reason why a number of people about whom I have approached the hon. Lady have had their applications refused. My own feeling is that the hon. Lady, overworked like those in other Departments, signs a lot of letters to myself and to other hon. Members without reading them—

Miss Hornsby-Smith: indicated dissent.

Mr. Orbach: I join with my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West in saying that there seems to be a great deal of inhumanity in the treatment of people coming from abroad, and there should not be inhumanity in the Home Office, a Department dealing with the lives of individuals who have already suffered considerably.
I wonder whether I might be allowed to say a word in reply to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Totnes (Mr. Mawby), who expressed a great deal of humanity and was concerned about trade union conditions but showed prejudices that cannot be in any way justified statistically. The question of aliens and our courts is, if I may use an American euphemism, a lot of "hooey".
During the war I conducted an inquiry into what was then called the black market, when charges were glibly made by those who were not very desirous of the war being conducted for the benefit of Great Britain and her allies that aliens and Jews were responsible for most of the activities which were illegal at that

time in consequence of the orders and regulations. I caused statisticians to attend courts to look up every case. I gave the information I had to the Home Secretary of the time and it was accepted by him, as it was accepted by many other important members of the Cabinet of the day.
I found that there was the same proportion of aliens or Jews or British subjects, who happened to be of the Protestant or Catholic faith or no faith whatsoever, engaged in such illicit and illegal activities, depending upon the trades they were in. One finds a preponderance of them in special trades but, comparatively with the population, I found that the percentages were exactly the same. I also found, and this was contained in the report which was prepared, that by and large the Press of this country gave two and a half times more publicity to the prosecution of an alien than it did to that of a British person. Some daily newspapers, which shall be nameless on this occasion, gave ten times more publicity to prosecutions of aliens than to those of British persons.
I hope that what I have said has helped to remove any lingering prejudices which the hon. Member for Totnes may have in his mind. I appeal to the Minister to give us some idea of the procedure with regard to aliens, from the time when an alien wants to come to this country to the time when he or she wants to become a British subject.

Mr. C. Pannell: I do not rise to attack the Joint Under-Secretary and I would not have risen except for a few remarks made earlier by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Totnes (Mr. Mawby). We do not recognise the hon. Gentleman as speaking with any authority in the trade union movement—

Mr. Mawby: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to interrupt, I suggest that he tell his right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens), who represents him on the Front Bench, who can be referred to in HANSARD as having a different opinion from that of the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Pannell: Since I have expressed no opinion other than that the hon. Member for Totnes represents nobody but himself in the trade union movement, I need not refer to my right hon. Friend


the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens). Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will listen to what I have to say, speaking with some knowledge of the trade union movement, by way of correction of the bias he has shown.
I have been a member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union for nearly forty years. It is the largest craft union in this country. Its policy towards aliens is shown by the fact that when the Hungarians came here we issued to all branches a directive—that may be too strong a word, because it is not necessary to direct the members—saying that Hungarians must be treated in exactly the same way as any British citizens: that is to say, that for admission to the union a Hungarian should be judged solely on his trade. In other words, if a Hungarian was a qualified turner or fitter, he should be admitted to Section 1; if his skills fell below, he should be treated in the same way as a British citizen. That is the policy we have applied not only to aliens, but to Commonwealth citizens.
In parentheses, may I say that one difficulty is that the skills for which people can be recognised abroad are sometimes lower than those of people in this country? For instance, a man in the West Indies will call himself a carpenter, a fitter, a turner, or a millwright but, according to our standards, he does not make the grade. He has heard what those grades receive in this country and finds it difficult to understand why he does not qualify for the A.E.U. But, after all, the union has standards going back to 1780 when it was the old Millwrights' Society, so it is a society which is rather more aristocratic than some of the noble Lords in the other place.
The difficulty about aliens is that when they come over here they must be judged on comparable scales. We do not judge them in the hole-and-corner way of the Home Office. We put them on the job and see whether they can do it. As a matter of fact, when such people are vouched for in a trade union branch, after a fortnight or a month, people have a better view of them sometimes than the Home Office.
No one could represent the great City of Leeds, which has the largest percentage of Jews of any city in the country, with- out being conscious of the individual hardships people suffer in this matter. I noticed that when my hon. Friend the

Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Orbach) said that the hon. Lady had rather too much to do, and signed on the dotted line without looking, she shook her head in violent disagreement. I am pleased about that. Something was said about the liberality of the hon. Lady's predecessor, Viscount Tenby, but I do not think that was true of him. At least, I had one case to prove that. He was a very lazy man, and we were all pleased to see him go. We think that the present occupant of the office is a very great improvement upon his predecessor.
5.0 p.m.
The trade union movement is very touchy on this subject. In this respect I have a particular pride in my union. We have recently sacrificed nearly 20,000 members in the Union of South Africa. We have severed all our membership in South Africa, because we do not agree with apartheid. We refuse to have any branch or organisation associated with a country which lends itself to racial segregation. Simply because our terms are the same the world over, we are the only international trade union affiliated to the British trade union movement.
That indicates that, fundamentally, the trade union movement is an international one. It is not a parochial one, as the hon. Member for Totnes would think. We believe that the matter of aliens is linked up with the question of human rights. Nobody should discriminate against a man simply because of the shape of his nose. That is anti-semitism. Nobody should discriminate against a man simply on the ground of his colour. That is a racialism of the worst type. I have always stood for equal pay because I believed that no one should discriminate against someone merely on the ground of sex. If the hon. Lady agrees with that last sentiment, she should extend that liberality to every letter she writes relating to an application for entry by an alien.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: We have had, as we always do on this subject, a very wide-ranging and interesting debate. I am grateful to hon. Members who have made their contributions, but I find myself in precisely the same difficulty as every Under-Secretary of State has done every year when hon. Members are able to keep within order while using their own case, as illustrations. I took the trouble to find


out from the Chair whether I should be in order in replying as I desired to do—and not, as the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) suggested, in trying to dodge—and I find that in replying to a wide debate of this nature I shall be out of order if I try to deal with individual cases.

Mr. Janner: Would the hon. Lady allow me to help her? Is she not in a position to utilise particular cases to illustrate her case without answering the cases which have been put forward? In my view, that would give her ample opportunity of showing her skill in replying.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I am not blind to the opportunity which the hon. Member suggests. I was merely making the point that often some strong accusations, backed up by particular cases which hon. Members have in mind, are made against the Home Office, and, in fairness, one would occasionally like an opportunity to deal specifically with those cases.

Mr. Mellish: Might I put it on record that if in any way I misinterpreted the hon. Lady, I humbly apologise and unreservedly withdraw the remark.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I thank the hon. Member for that generous withdrawal. I thought that he had rather misrepresented me.
The debate falls into two main parts. First, there is the criticism that the present legislation should be replaced by permanent legislation coupled with a recognition that some form of immigration control is very necessary for this country. There is also the minority view, which has apparently been expressed by some hon. Members, that we should allow entry to almost anyone and everyone who wishes to come to these shores.
I will deal with the first point. Strictly speaking, the debate deals solely with Section 1 of the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act, 1919, and if that, as the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) recommends, were to be omitted from Part I of the Schedule there would no longer be any power to keep foreigners out of the country or to secure the departure of any

undesirable who might be here. Whether the powers are too sweeping in the view of some hon. Members, or whether they are wisely administered, is really a different issue.
This legislation, as the hon. Member for Islington, East pointed out, has been in operation for thirty-eight years, and, while it may seem odd that it should be renewed annually under this procedure, it certainly has the merit of giving hon. Members an annual opportunity to air their grievances and for a short debate on problems affecting aliens.
I think, too, that it is worth noting that the reasons for this legislation apply in very similar degree today to that in which they applied in 1919. We are undoubtedly the most popular country within Europe for immigration. The hon. Member for Islington, East said that hon. Members have one or two cases which touch their hearts on humanitarian grounds and of constituents desiring to bring relations into the country, but we ought to get into perspective the magnitude of the problem.
There are 384,000 aliens registered as resident here at present. That does not take into account the soak-away of about 4,000 a year who obtain naturalisation. It does not take into account 140,000 coloured people who are British citizens and do not rank as aliens. The largest single contingent among the 384,000 is the Polish one. After the war, 120,000 Poles were admitted. Many of them have relatives and friends whom they desire to bring here, and they keep up a very constant pressure to add to their numbers.
It is not a case of a few hundreds seeking admission. If reasonable control of immigration—I believe I shall be able to prove that what we have is reasonable control—were abandoned it would not be the entry of a few hundreds or a few thousands that we should face. One must bear in mind the relentless pressure from the Iron Curtain countries. Also, there are 2 million unemployed in Italy, and there is tremendous pressure from Italy for Ministry of Labour permits for those wishing to fill vacancies in various trades. The prospect that we should face without reasonable control of immigration would not be, as some people think, on the scale of, say, the 16,000 Hungarians. We


should face the prospect of many hundreds of thousands of Europeans coming to this country.
I believe that our full employment, our democratic system and our Welfare State are magnets which would draw the unemployed in Europe, the oppressed from behind the Iron Curtain who were able to obtain exit permits, the old, the sick and the uncared for to these shores in very vast numbers if we did not have control over entry. The need for control is as strong today, for slightly different reasons, as it was in 1919.
The Government are not unmindful of the views expressed by hon. Members that this temporary legislation should be replaced by permanent legislation. Several hon. Members fairly made the point that they realise that there must still be a measure of immigration control. We have given the matter very careful consideration, but we are not convinced at this moment of the need to introduce such alternative legislation to serve the existing purpose taking priority over the many other measures which occupy the time of the House and, indeed, are in the queue for the time of the House.
Successive Governments, including that in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) was himself Home Secretary, have felt that better use of Parliamentary time could be made than by using it to correct what, at worst, is a technical oddity, but which serves its purpose in protecting our social standards, giving an annual opportunity for hon. Members to air their views upon it, and controlling what would be a flood of immigration into the country were such a regulation not to exist.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary adheres to the view that, while the powers contained in the Aliens Order should be and. I believe, are, humanely exercised—if I may say so, that view was strenuously endorsed by the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), in the debate in 1954—it is nevertheless essential that we should retain these powers.
First, the security considerations have lost none of their force. The hon. Member for Islington, East very fairly made the case that in the troubled times of today we still have to remember the necessity for security precautions. By far the largest pressure is that which comes

from would-be immigrants on economic or social grounds seeking to secure a lodgment here. That pressure is greater than it has ever been.
The hon. Member for Islington, East, asked particularly about the number of labour permits, and there was mention of domestic servants and the like. From Poland, Germany and Italy, from which countries most of them come, there have been 11,128 permit holders of which a substantial number were domestic servants. So far as Iron Curtain countries are concerned, there is no discrimination against the country as such, provided that the individuals have documents of return-ability. In other words, whether the individual comes from Poland, Germany or Italy to take up domestic service here, he must have valid documents of ret urn-ability; otherwise, his arrival here is merely a guise for immigration. If such people coming from Iron Curtain countries have valid documents of return-ability, they are considered on the same basis as those from non-Iron Curtain countries.
If it be granted that the need for control exists, we claim that our way of exercising it is sensible and effective, without being oppressive. Under the Aliens Order, foreigners coming to this country must obtain leave to land from the immigration officer. This procedure enables the circumstances of each case to be looked at and an appropriate decision made by the immigration officer.
It is well known throughout Europe that if an alien wishes to take up employment in this country he must obtain a Ministry of Labour permit. If an alien arrives at a port with a valid Ministry of Labour permit, there is no difficulty; but if, as so frequently happens, he arrives at the port saying that he is here on a visit and then, perhaps through an inadequate knowledge of the English language, produces a letter saying, "I have not been able to get a Ministry of Labour permit for you, but you come and we will 'fiddle' it when you arrive", quite rightly and justifiably he is turned back at the port. Then, of course, the constituent writes to his Member of Parliament and says that the foreigner was coming only on a visit.
The immigration officer has power to refuse leave to land and power also to attach conditions which govern the length


of stay and the freedom to take jobs. In my view, it is open to us to exercise control at the ports in this way.
The hon. Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Orbach) asked specifically how we exercised our control and on what standards we judged it. I believe that, because we are an island, it is more effective. Also, it is easier for the alien to know where he stands at the port of entry, thereby preventing the necessity, after people have been let in—many of them arriving with no means at all—for sending them back, possibly at the public expense on a deportation order, which is an unpleasant and undesirable business, to be avoided if possible. I believe that, under our system, we are able to turn back the comparatively rare foreigner whom we do not want in this country at all.
5.15 p.m.
Let us not get out of balance how comparatively small is the number of people turned back from the ports. During the 12 months ended 30th September last, 1,253,366 foreign passengers entered the United Kingdom, and 2,436 were refused permission to land. That is less than 0·2 per cent., or one in 500. Let us for a moment consider the type of person turned back. There are those who arrive here knowing no one, absolutely penniless or with just a few shillings—under £t—on them; they have no home, no job, and no people to go to. Is it seriously suggested that the immigration officer is wrong in not letting those people in?

Mr. Orbach: Does the hon. Lady suggest that any hon. Member raised that sort of issue? If such people knew nobody in this country, they would not approach any Member of Parliament. The hon. Lady is producing a very nice red herring.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not like the facts being brought home to him, but I think that the Committee is entitled to know about the magnitude of the problem.
Hon. Gentlemen have brought up individual cases which have come to them and have made accusations about the harshness of the control exercised by the Home Office. On this annual occasion, it is right and proper that hon. Members should realise the types of case which

have to be judged and the sort of people who, within the authority given to the immigration officers are, I believe quite legitimately, turned back.
Hon. Members may like to know what Sorts of person make up that total; they may wish to know what are the ingredients of the figure 2,400 and how they were classified. There were 512 turned back because they intended to work here and had no labour permit. There were 343 others who had insufficient means to support themselves, in very many cases having arrived with under £1 on them and knowing no one in this country at all. There were 298 who arrived in circumstances which required a visa, but who had not applied for or obtained one. There were 195 stowaways.
The number of refusals at the port is not in itself a complete indication of the success of immigration control, because, quite obviously, the fact that we have immigration control and people know that they may be turned back at the ports limits the number prepared to risk coming over and paying the fare. Aliens will hesitate to come over if they know that they may be turned back. We must keep the matter in perspective. If there were no control, there would be a flood of immigrants to this country because, without any doubt, this is the most popular country in Europe for immigration.

Mr. W. Griffiths: I do not think that anyone disagrees with what the hon. Lady has said, and I am wondering why site has spoken on this. Can she quote from the words of any of my hon. Friends who have said that that type of person should be admitted?

Miss Hornsby-Smith: With respect, hon. Gentlemen have made their case on what they regard as proper grounds for an accusation against the Home Office, deliberately avoiding, if I may say so, the wider issue of the necessity for control. In this annual debate, whether or not hon. Members opposite are themselves interested, it is right that the Committee should understand the magnitude of the demand for immigration into this country and what the removal of control would entail.
The hon. Member for Willesden, East, the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) and the hon. Member for Islington, East all raised the question of deportation. In some cases, as one


hon. Gentleman pointed out, the alien is in this country and may have been here for years. While it is obviously essential that we should have sonic ultimate sanction in the case of aliens admitted to the country subject to certain controls and who refuse to conform to their conditions, there is, as was pointed out, a check—imposed in August last year in pursuance of the Establishment Convention of the Council of Europe—on the Secretary of State's discretion. As announced to the House on 2nd August, 1956, in answer to a Question by the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Younger), the provision had been made that aliens served with a deportation order should, in certain circumstances, have a right of appeal to the chief magistrate at Bow Street.
The exceptions are where the recommendation has already been made by a court, where the deportation is on grounds of public security, where the alien has landed without permission, and where, having been in the United Kingdom less than two years, he has failed to observe the condition's attaching to his stay. With regard to aliens who may have been in this country many years, the new arrangements go a long way to meet the representations made in last year's supply debate on this subject by the right hon. Member for Grimsby.
So far as the security cases are concerned, I think that, on consideration, the Committee will agree that no Home Secretary could abdicate his direct responsibility for decisions on national security grounds to any other body, however eminent, which had no such responsibility to Parliament. Such cases are very rare. We have not had a single one in the last twelve months.
Hon. Members may like to hear how the analysis of those going to Bow Street worked out. Thirty-two aliens have been told that they are eligible to make representations, and of these fifteen have not chosen to avail themselves of the opportunity. Eight cases have been held back because it was not certain that the people concerned could secure recognition from their country of origin, and because it would have been pointless for the magistrate to hear their case if the order had not been enforceable. Nine cases have been heard, and in eight of them the

magistrate has confirmed the order for deportation.
As the hon. Gentleman opposite rightly said, the number of deportations fell from 199, in 1953, to 121 last year and to 75 so far this year. I would point out that a very large proportion of those cases concern people deported on the recommendation of the court after a record of crime. There are also some unhappy instances of mental cases where, on medical advice, and to cover the expense involved in treatment and attendance on the patient, it has been decided that the patient would be happier in his country of origin. Through the various embassies we have been able to get them accepted, but the procedure for doing this entails public expense.
The fact that there are comparatively few deportations owes much to the vigilance and the powers of the immigration officers at the ports for dealing with the very cases which hon. Members opposite objected to my raising just now, but over which we must retain control.
The hon. Gentleman opposite mentioned the registration of visitors. He was a little unkind about paragraph 6 of the 1957 Order, but that information is supplied to the police and is not on the hotel register. If we are to keep track of a very large influx of aliens into the country, then the only way to do so is by this method of registration at their various addresses.
I do not know whether I shall be wholly in order in dealing with a matter which, I submit, is very germane to the debate today and which, indeed, is the basis of many cases put to us in the past few weeks by hon. Members on behalf of Polish visitors to the country. It is the determined and persistent attempt of a very large number of so-called visitors to this country to evade the Aliens order and immigration control by turning their visit into permanent residence. Frankly, it is one of our greatest difficulties. We welcome contact with the Iron Curtain countries and we welcome the tourist trade as such, but it will stand or fall on a basis of straight dealing. If we accept assurances and undertakings in good faith, and we treat these visitors in good faith, we feel that we are entitled to expect the same on the other side. Very substantial numbers of people from Poland, in particular, and to a lesser


degree from Germany and Yugoslavia, who come to this country on the most solemn assurances that they are coming only on a visit, apply sometimes within two days of their arrival, for permanent residence. If a very substantial number of these people dishonour the obligations they have undertaken it makes our task that much more difficult in being as free as we would wish to be in allowing such visits.
A new situation has arisen because of the greater freedom recently allowed in Poland in granting exit visas. I will give the Committee some figures so that it may realise the terrific increase in our problem. Last year, only 1,700 visitors from Poland came to this country. This year we have already had just on 10,000. The figure is more than twelve times as great for the first nine months of this year than it was for the corresponding period last year. From the 120,000 Poles who were received into this country after the last war there is relentless pressure to bring in not only near but almost every relative from Poland. The potential is enormous.
It is fair, I think, that the Home Office should ask hon. Members to appreciate, when pressed for assistance in these cases, that our task in allowing free visiting, as we would wish to do, from the Iron Curtain countries or any other country, is seriously jeopardised if a very substantial number of the people concerned are to dishonour their obligations and stay.

Mr. Orbach: ; The Home Office can always say, "No."

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I know.

Mr. Orbach: No hon. Member has raised this matter, either. This is another red herring.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: I am sorry, but if this is a red herring it also happens to be the problem at the present time, and I think this is the occasion on which to put the Committee in the picture concerning the facts which we at the Home Office have to face.

Mr. Orbach: The cases which we on this side of the Committee raised concerned those who were in Poland at the moment and who were applying to come to this country. The fact that they are immediate relatives, not near relatives, of

children of British subjects over here, and were not allowed to come here, has nothing to do with this sort of issue.

5.30 p.m.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: This debate is on the entry of aliens and, with great respect, I am sure that had I been out of order I would have been told so. I submit that the facts that I have given are relevant to our consideration of problems concerning aliens.
The hon. Member referred to certain Polish residents here with relatives abroad. We give the closest consideration to claims in relation to direct relatives of Polish or other aliens already permanently established here. If the hon. Member has any particular case he wishes to take up with me I will be only too happy to go into it, but he must know that, because of direct ties of relationship—wives and young children—and also under the distressed relatives scheme, we have allowed a very considerable number of relatives from the Iron Curtain countries to join established aliens in this country.
It is not possible in every case. I gathered from the case to which the hon. Member referred that he was speaking of children who were adult. If they are adult and application has not, in the last ten years—when at that time they might have been juveniles—been made for them to come into this country, I suggest that in those cases there may be considerations which the hon. Gentleman has not brought out.
The hon. Member also raised the question of asylum. Now that there is, we hope, perhaps less persecution in certain of the Eastern European countries, and now that those Governments are making it easier for their nationals to visit the United Kingdom, I do think it fair, in answer to the hon. Member's claim that we should, almost automatically, grant asylum to anyone from a country behind the Iron Curtain who asks for it, to say that these people are not refugees seeking asylum when coming here on visits from their own country. They have been given documentation and travel facilities by their own Government, and are at liberty to return. It would be only too easy to abuse the right to visit if anybody from an Iron Curtain country could, on landing, automatically claim asylum. I


think that it is necessary to make that point.
The hon. Member spoke about Jewish nationals who had been ejected from Egypt and not allowed to come here. As he knows, over 6,000 expellees have come as British nationals. Many of them have never set foot in Britain before, but have spent their lives in that territory. Among them, indeed, have been many Jewish persons.
The hon. Member knows, further, that we have accepted about 200 Stateless people. He has personally interested himself in several cases. He specifically asked the basis upon which we haw refused some other cases. We have quite considerably widened the basis of acceptance. Basically, permission is given if the refugee has some connection with this country and no stronger connection with any other country. At least, it has been on that basis that some of the cases that the hon. Gentleman has taken up with me have been allowed.
As the hon. Member will accept, those people had no direct connection with this country, and it was because it was considered that they had no stronger connection with any other country, either through race or domicile, that they were permitted to enter. I think that, in fairness, he must admit that we have generously interpreted the regulations.

Mr. Janner: hope that I made clear that a considerable amount of generous feeling has been shown in this matter. I did not want to sidestep that issue at all. But I want the hon. Lady to realise that another connection is not necessarily stronger just because an Egyptian Jew happens to have a passport, whether it be Italian or any other. In most cases, he has never been in the country stated. It is because the Egyptian Government have not been letting such a person have Egyptian nationality that havoc has been caused. In those cases, I beg her not to take the mere fact that the passport says that he is Italian as proof that he has any connection with Italy—or with any other country.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: The hon. Member is asking us to take any and every expellee from Egypt, and we cannot accept that as a basis. I have just said that if they have any real association with this country, as, indeed, some of them had, although they have never set foot in

the United Kingdom, many of them have been accepted, as the hon. Member has conceded.

Mr. Orbach: The hon. Lady knows that many have not been accepted, although most had relatives in this country—cases of husband and wife.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: If the hon. Gentleman likes to take up with me specific cases later I will be glad to look at them, but he knows—

Mr. Orbach: We have taken them up and taken them up, but have got nowhere. I thought that I would get some sympathy from the hon. Lady today, but it is hopeless.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: My recollection of the correspondence of the hon. Gentleman is by no means consistent with what he has led the Committee to believe. I can remember several cases that he has taken up successfully.
As I said earlier, this debate has ranged over an extremely wide field, and although some hon. Members have expressed annoyance because I have dealt with immigration policy and the regulations that we operate in rather greater detail than, perhaps, they wish to listen to, nevertheless it is important that we should bring home to the Committee the need for these powers. The fact that, throughout the term of office of the various Governments, it has been felt wise and prudent to renew these powers each year forces me to ask the Committee to reject the Amendment, and so ensure that the Home Office retains these very necessary powers for the control of alien immigration into this country.

Mr. Ede: The hon. Lady started her speech by saying that this way of dealing with the problem afforded us an annual opportunity for airing grievances. Were I an Irishman I should welcome that, because the Irishman would, as a rule, sooner have the grievance than the remedy. We mention grievances in this Committee not as an occasion for annual, monthly or daily airing, but in an effort to get remedies. I think that the gravamen of the case against the continuation of this Act is the fact that in 1953 all the Orders then extant were brought into one Order. It repealed all the previous Orders, but it was an Order, and we could not, therefore, discuss


this vital question of policy which depends on an Act passed thirty-eight years ago in circumstances rather more different from the present than the hon. Lady was prepared to admit.
The Government pride themselves on the fact that they have done away with a lot of Orders and embodied them in permanent legislation during their period of office. I beg the Government to submit to us the Order made in 1953 in the form of a Bill to replace the Measure we ask should not be continued today, so that the House can consider in detail the way in which the scheme works in the light of the circumstances of 1957.
I was sorry that the hon. Lady kept saying that the Home Office did things, and that the Home Office was being attacked. That was one of the problems which confronted me when I was at the Home Office. Somehow or other people still think that the Home Secretary is a very reasonable person who would like to do a lot of good things, but that when he would do good, some evil counsellor at the Home Office is present to prevent him.
I am sure that the present Home Secretary would not attempt to defend himself on that ground. Having been associated with him in a Government Department, I know only too well how the right hon. Gentleman insists that the Minister is responsible for the policy of the Department. The Home Office is not there to run the show, but to carry out such policies as he feels are justified by the circumstances of the time. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether we should continue to deal with this matter by way of an annual debate in which we can make no effective criticism of the details of something dependent on an Act passed in 1919. Does this procedure provide sufficient opportunity for hon. Members to consider details of a policy which, as is quite evident from the debate today, arouses the warmest feelings of human sympathy among everyone interested in the subject?
I do not object to the statistics which the Joint Under-Secretary gave to us. I think they put the question into perspective, but I ask the hon. Lady to realise that a general statistic is no answer to the kind of personal human problems raised by my hon. Friends. I was rather

surprised to hear that the hon. Lady had obtained some Ruling that if she wanted to answer any of these cases, she would not be allowed to do so by the Chair. I know that there was once a young lady who asked her mother beforehand what she was to ask for if a certain offer was made to her—and she got her instructions.

Mr. Mellish: What were they?

Mr. Ede: The rather unfortunate fate of John the Baptist has been continuously evident in the debate this afternoon regarding individual cases where my hon. Friends expected—as I did—that they would be able to obtain some specific answer. If we cannot enlighten a debate of this kind by reference to specific cases where we think that the regulation is now too harsh or else it has been wrongly administered, the airing of a grievance becomes even more futile than is generally the case.

Mr. Walter Elliot: I think that the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken in his scriptural reference—

Mr. Mellish: The right hon. Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Walter Elliot) has only just entered the Chamber.

Mr. Elliot: I am talking about the scriptural reference by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). The promise was made after the performance, and I think that on that account greater credit was given.

Mr. Ede: I quote the Scriptures from memory, but I think it says:
…before instructed of her mother
when it deals with the episode where the consultation became effective.

Mr. Elliot: The right hon. Gentleman is mistaken. The performance came first.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. Ede: Were this a place where it was possible—if we were meeting on Epsom Downs—I would undertake to make a small wager on our respective memories.
The hon. Lady has dealt with a good many cases, but there was one to which she made no reference at all, that of the people in China to whom my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) referred. Some of them


were refugees in China after the Russian Revolution and now, apparently, they find themselves overtaken by another revolution. The Committee would like to know exactly what is happening about those people and whether there are many of them.
I was not satisfied on the main point which interests me, because in her reply the Joint Under-Secretary made no reference to it. Each year we have asked that the Order of 1953 should be embodied in modern legislation; that the Order itself should disappear and that we should depend for our regulation of this subject on up-to-date legislation, when we might have the opportunity of raising and voting on all the issues. The final decision might go one way or the other, but, at any rate, it would be a decision arrived at in the light of the circumstances which confronted us.
May I say, as I did on the last occasion when this subject was debated here, that I have every sympathy with the hon. Lady in the discharge of the duties delegated to her? I imagine that she could quite well say that she would like to meet many of the cases raised by my hon. Friends but for the appalling precedents, from the point of view of present policy, that would be created were sentiment allowed to intervene in some of the decisions she has to make. However, I appeal to her, and to the Home Secretary, to realise that often we have to deal here with very great human tragedies, sometimes for one person, sometimes for a whole family of people separated by many hundreds of miles and by restrictions in communications. Where we can on any ground at all allow human feeling to triumph over a mere regulation, I hope that we shall always allow ourselves to do so.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. B. T. Parkin: I beg to move, in page 3, to leave out lines 10 and 11.
I propose the deletion from the Schedule of that part of the Bill which refers to the Population (Statistics) Act, 1938. It will be recollected that in 1938 the Bill was not passed without considerable discussion, and it was thought fit to make it one of those Acts of Parliament which have to be confirmed from time to time by the House.
The opposition to the Bill, during the Second Reading, took the form some-

times of the wit and derision which Mr. Alan Herbert, as he then was, poured upon it, and sometimes of passionate opposition by hon. Members who sat on this side of the House. It was at a time of great economic crisis, when there were tremendous economic problems in the world, and the Government of the day thought it would be a good idea if they undertook an inquiry into the reasons for the variation in the birth rate. By way of finding out why 1 million married couples in this country were childless, and discovering why people who did not have babies were not having them, the Government tried by this Act, with its very special powers, to ask very special questions about people who had just had a baby or about people who had just died.
That is the basis, apparently, of the inquiry into reasons for infertility from that day to this. On that ground alone, perhaps one should pause to inquire whether we are to have any result from those inquiries. Is there to be any report on them? What are the Government doing? After all, this began nearly twenty years ago and since then a lot of things have happened in the world, and changes in habits and population have taken place which surely are worth considering.
If that Measure were before us for Second Reading, or even Third Reading, it would be unthinkable that any of us would allow it to pass without making a protest at the humbug of trying to pretend that we can get useful information by that Measure alone about why people do not have babies. I should have to make a protest and say to the Minister of Health, "Why don't you ask, not those who have just had babies, but those who want to have them and are prevented from having them, and you might then learn something about the birth rate."
I should like the Minister to come to my advice bureau in Paddington some time and listen to the heartbreaking stories which show why it is couples cannot have more children when they want to have them—the couple, for instance, who come and say, "What can we do to get a house? If we have a baby, the landlord will turn us out, and if we go to the town hall they cannot put us on the housing list, with any likelihood of our getting a house, unless we have a lot of babies."
There are worse stories than that and more poignant ones. One young couple with a baby said, "Mother-in-law lets us sleep on the bed settee in her room, but we have to take the baby away first thing in the morning to a nursery and bring it back at night; she will not have it in the house in the daytime, and she will not let us stay if we have another." I know of a married woman who has already several children and would like more. She said to me, "We all have to sleep in the same room. I cannot now have marital relations with my husband, because some of the children may wake up."
These are the things that really matter. These are some of the things which ought to be brought out as factors influencing the family life of this country at the present time. I think that it would be humbug formally to allow this Act to continue in force as if it were a serious contribution to sociological study.
There are other matters about which the Minister of Health might be interested to make inquiries. Has he not been stirred by the doubts which arise in people's minds on the subject of fertility and the future of the human race as a result of H-bomb tests? Why ask a woman who has just had a baby about the reasons people do not have babies? Why not introduce powers to investigate what may be the result of a recent accident in this country? Why not ask what is happening to those innocent Japanese fishermen who were overtaken by disaster as the result of an H-bomb test? There is an immense field for inquiry there. Why does not anyone mention it?
The reason is partly, no doubt, that the Conservative Party has a rooted objection to getting information or using it when it is thrust upon them. The Prime Minister himself in the last day or two passionately rejected a suggestion from this side of the Committee that he should take some note of the number of scientists and technologists leaving this country. He replied to the hon. Member who asked the Question as if it were a wicked thing to make a note of occupations. He referred, in sinister terms, to the emergency powers in war of mass registration. Why then do we have the mockery of this Measure which gives special powers to these people to ask these ridiculous questions.
There is, one would have thought, another immensely important field for study in the subject of fertility, and that is what is the effect on the fertility of people whose standard of living rises. Would it not be extremely interesting, for instance, to see what is the effect in the rise of the standard of living of West Indian immigrants who come to this country? Is it not possible that scientific information of this kind would be of immense value in estimating at this time what will be the needs of the world in the future, when we are all considering the problems of raising the standards of living in the under-developed parts of the world and among the under-privileged people?
There are some prophets who tell us that it will be impossible to feed them all, that the increase in the birth rate will be enormous; and there are others who hold a different view. What chance have we of conducting such an inquiry unless we have some very different powers from those set out in the Act?
I could take the Minister to Paddington and show him two houses where, within the last few weeks, twenty of the inhabitants, coloured people, have fled the houses on the approach of the returning officer's representative and refused to be put on the voters' list because the houses are overcrowded. No doubt the landlord is responsible for that, and I hope that the authorities will make some check. People are so afraid of questions being asked that they will not admit that these circumstances exist. Therefore, if we are to make a serious sociological study, we shall have to treat them a little better than we have done and find out where they are living and under what conditions.
On all these grounds, I think that there are ample reasons for moving this Amendment and indeed forcing it to a Division unless we get full and very satisfactory answers.
The main reason we should hesitate at the present time about this Act and these powers is because of the special strain which they put on certain sections of the Civil Service and on the administrative staff of the hospitals and National Health Service. We are in a situation in which there is a crisis between those sets of administrators. The questions asked are, of course, very delicate ones. I am referring to the Schedule of the Act. It


is known that the penalties for withholding information or for disclosing information are very severe. Anyone who withholds information is liable to be fined £10 and anyone who discloses it when he should not can be fined £100 and sent to prison. Therefore, people have to walk very warily when they are handling this matter.
Information is collected by co-operation between different sots of administrators who have approximately the same status and who, in 1948, received the same salaries. However, the civil servant who earned £760 a year in 1948 has had a cash increase of £448 since then, whereas his opposite number in the hospital, who has to talk to him on equal terms and to supply him with information—

6.0 p.m.

The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Gordon Touche): I am afraid the hon. Member is getting too far from the Amendment.

Mr. Mellish: I have conclusive proof that without work by the hospital staff the Minister of Health could not possibly get these statistics. A considerable amount of work has to be done by the hospital staff.

Mr. Parkin: I am sorry, Sir Gordon. I am not challenging your Ruling on the procedure of the Committee, but I hope you will allow me to say that information gathered under the administration of this Act comes from the hospital employees. Indeed, the information obtained from the hospitals is regarded by the Minister of Health as the most reliable, and he attaches a tremendous amount of practical importance to the relationship between civil servants and the hospital staffs.

Dr. Edith Summerskill: May I support my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin). Sir Gordon? When it is necessary to collect statistics about fertility or infertility there are clinics attached to the hospitals which are concerned with this matter, and they use the services of the clerical workers in the hospitals.

The Deputy-Chairman: The Amendment is not concerned with information.

Dr. Summerskill: It is impossible to collect this information without the

activities of the clerical workers. The doctor himself would not give the information. It is necessary, if it is to be collected, for it to be supplied by the clerical workers.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Richard Thompson): Perhaps it might assist the Committee if I intervened at this point, Sir Gordon, to say that these provisions put no burden on the hospitals. The information which is required is obtained by the informants at the time of registering births and deaths, and is undertaken by the registrars.

Mr. Mellish: On a point of order. I have in my hand a document which cannot be disproved and which deals with this point. I should be quite willing to show it to you, Sir Gordon. It proves that information is collected by the administrative staff before it is finally handed over to the officers of the Ministry of Health.

Mr. Victor Collins: Hospital staffs must be fully aware that they are compiling a record from one patient in every ten and that there is a very great deal of information. I do not want to develop this point now because I hope to catch your eye, later, Sir Gordon, but I would ask the Minister whether he wishes that collection of information to continue. There is no question that hospital workers take a very great part in this work.

Mr. Parkin: We have had a very interesting discussion on this point. We all follow with humility the procedure of the Committee in an effort to learn something. I cannot recollect an occasion when a discussion of this kind centred so much around the point of what actually happens.
It is notable that the representative on the Front Bench from the Ministry of Health did not know what happens in the hospital when the representative of the registrar seeks information. Perhaps we might be able to enlighten him a little more on the work of his own Department. It is a regular part of the departmental arrangements for the Registrar-General to seek information from hospitals, and I know, as does anyone who is acquainted with hospital work, that his representatives consult hospital authorities on the


spot. They sometimes ask permission to interview people after they have had their babies, or after somebody has just died. Sometimes the patients will answer the questions and sometimes they will not. They are asked such questions as, "How many children have you had by your present husband and how many by a previous husband?" Sometimes the representatives get the information by telephone.

Mr. Collins: On a point of order. In view of the fact that the Parliamentary Secretary obviously is not fully informed on these things, would it not be appropriate, Sir Gordon, to ask for the Minister of Health himself to attend this debate? He might be able to enlighten the Committee still further and so assist our judgment on future occasions.

The Deputy-Chairman: That is not a matter for me.

Mr. Parkin: In the last couple of days the Minister has said that hon. Members seeking to raise these points should study the programme of the House and should select a suitable occasion. I wish to submit to the Committe that, in addition to the reasons which I have already adduced for suspending the operation of the Act, there is another reason, which is that we are faced with a crisis of administration. One has to examine how this crisis came about and how it is likely to be resolved before one can decide the appropriate Parliamentary occasion. It might be raised on a Motion for the reduction of the Minister's salary, or on a Supply Day, when it is tantamount to a motion of censure on the Minister. The present attendance of one Government supporter on the back benches does not indicate any general anxiety that the Minister of Health might lose his job, but that is not what I am suggesting. I am suggesting that it is very appropriate that the Bill should come before us today because it gives us the opportunity to suggest that, in this period of crisis, the Minister might be absolved from this particular clerical responsibility, which is of little importance compared with the other problems with which he should be dealing.
We should do no violence to the Government or to the working of the Health Service if we suspended the operation

of the Act. I am fortified in my belief that this is the right way to handle the matter because the crisis arose quite unexpectedly and not because of any internal circumstance in the Ministry of Health. The figures which you, Sir Gordon, allowed me to use just now and which I will repeat show the difference between the salary of the civil servant and the salary of the worker in the hospital; they show a 56 per cent. increase for the civil servant and a 34 per cent. increase for the Health Service employee. You rightly guided me to recognise that that matter is outside the administration of the Bill; that is why this debate seems the proper place to wise the matter.
This matter may be resolved very shortly. It did not spring from any difficulty in assembling statistics about the fertility of married couples, but from the crisis in which the Government found themselves and in which the Government selected one Minister in order to make a demonstration.

The Deputy-Chairman: I find it difficult to see how the crisis arises on this Amendment.

Mr. Parkin: I am attempting to demonstrate that the Bill provides a method to help in the solution of the crisis. That is why it is right not to wait until a Supply Day to put down a motion of censure but to say, gently, that we fully understand that the Minister of Health is only a puppet in this matter. He is put up to make a token demonstration, to achieve a prestige victory in a sham fight on the subject of wages. Therefore, he has imposed a veto to the great hurt of the members of the Health Service staffs, to the great indignation of people who have had faith in the system. But that is not a long-term matter. Indeed, that may be the reason why the Minister is not here at the moment. We know he is searching hard for a formula.
This arose, of course, from those rumours about the devaluation of the £ and the wicked remarks that it was not what the Government did with the Bank Rate that mattered, but what they did with wages which would alter the opinion of people in other parts of the world and would alter the value of the English £. They had to find someone they could put up to make a gesture to


show the world that this Government were ready to have a show-down, and, of course, it was a mockery.

The Deputy-Chairman: I cannot see that this has any relation to the Bill.

Mr. Parkin: The Minister of Health finds himself in an ignominious position at present—

Mr. E. G. Willis: rose—

Mr. Parkin: If my hon. Friend will allow me to put myself right with the Chair first, I shall be glad to give way to him. The Minister of Health is in an ignominious position and has been made to look extremely foolish. He has been made to look as though he had deliberately cast aside forty years' experience of a certain process of negotiation—

The Deputy-Chairman: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member again, but I do not think this has anything to do with the Bill.

Mr. Parkin: This Bill can help the Minister of Health out of a difficulty. If we relieve him of the necessity of collecting this particular lot of statistics, surely it will be easier for the representatives of his Department and the representatives of the Health Service staffs to go on with the work which is necessary and in the meantime, no doubt, he will have worked out a formula; he will have found his face-saving device to accept a new structure.

The Deputy-Chairman: I am afraid the hon. Member cannot go into that.

Mr. Parkin: I shall not pursue it unduly; indeed, in moving the Amendment no one would wish to go into full detail on any of the points. I have been led, perhaps against my will, to elaborate this point in too much detail. I would have wanted this point to have a just balance with the other points I have made—the points about research into fertility as a result of other factors and so on—but this is an important point in the case I am making. The reason I have moved the Amendment is that the Minister finds himself in temporary difficulty, a difficulty which does not arise out of the Bill, but out of all the much more important work which has to be done.
In order that the important work can be continued and tension somewhat eased. I think we ought to take every opportunity of enabing the Minister to announce to his workers that this particular job does not need doing for the moment. He could then assure them that after a very brief period he will be able to alter his opinion on the subject of the veto which has been imposed, not, of course, arising out of anything to do with this Bill, but because the Government needed someone who would be simple enough, or would sacrifice himself, in coming forward to carry out a sham fight.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. Willis: I am sure my hon. Friend wants to be fair. If he wants to be fair, he should remember that the Secretary of State for Scotland is an equal partner in this matter and is equally responsible and should equally bear the blame with the Minister of Health.

Mr. Parkin: That, no doubt, will be for my hon. Friends to press later on. I have been furtively looking for a glimpse of bare knees on the Government Front Bench and expected two speeches in reply. Of course, that ought to be the case, but it is not a matter for me to press. I do not know how Scottish hon. Members feel about that, but I have no doubt that if they succeed in catching your eye, Sir Gordon, they will be able to put the point of view of those in Scotland who regard this veto imposed by the Secretary of State for Scotland and negotiating machinery as a disaster.

Mr. Mellish: I support the Amendment so very ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin). To get myself in order from the beginning, Sir Charles, I say at once that we all recognise that this Schedule deals with the Population (Statistics) Act, 1938 and concerns the whole Act. We have put down this Amendment to give us the opportunity of discussing certain problems associated with the compilation of those statistics which are given to the Registrar-General who, in turn, makes them available to the appropriate Ministries.
It will be noticed by your good self as Chairman, Sir Charles, that on the Government Front Bench there are two junior Ministers, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health representing England and


Wales, and the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland representing Scotland. They are two junior partners of Ministries with which we have had a lot of argument in the past week or two. We recognise that they have not a lot of faith in the National Health Act, nor have their superiors.
The point I have to establish at an early stage in the debate in arguing this Amendment is what the National Health administrative and clerical workers, about whom my hon. Friends and I are very much concerned, have to do with this Bill. That is the only concern, Sir Charles, that the Chair will have in relating any arguments about the administrative and clerical workers in the hospital world to this Amendment. That challenge I accept straight away and will deal with the point at once in order to stop you worrying as Chairman.
I have made a lot of inquiries into this matter. At first I did not associate the Bill with the Ministry of Health, but I found that the Ministry of Health was responsible for the Bill in 1938. I had thought that it would be a Treasury matter, but it turns out to be a Ministry of Health responsibility. When I inquired further, I realised why that was so. It is because many of the statistics available on population come from sources over which the Ministry of Health has a direct control. I inquired what sort of work is done in hospitals to help the Registrar-General to obtain this information, and I was quite surprised to learn of some of the work that is done.
I ought not to have been surprised, because I know that in the hospital world, behind all the glamour of healing and treatment of patients—there is a lot of unhappiness also—many doctors and nurses and a tremendous army of administrative workers are doing work which is usually unrecognised. They are very badly paid. Behind the doctors and the nurses are the administrative and the clerical workers who are doing a magnificent job. Without them the doctors and nurses, as they themselves would admit, could not carry on their jobs. When a doctor sees a patient, the patient must have a record card. When a nurse wishes to know what is required, she needs to see that record card, on which the doctor has written certain instructions.

The card has to be filed and kept up to date.
The same comment applies to the population statistics to which I am about to refer. What is it that the clerical and administrative workers in a hospital do which is associated with statistics? They work in very close consultation with the Registrar-General's office. For example, the registration of all patients diagnosed as suffering from any form of cancer involves a great deal of clerical work, and this is carried out in conjunction with the Registrar-General's office.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. J. Nixon Browne): rose—

Mr. Mellish: I am an Englishman, not a Scot.

Mr. Browne: As I am advised, the power to which the hon. Member refers does not lie in the 1938 Act which we are discussing, but in the Births and Deaths Registration Acts. I am certain that he is not in order in bringing together the Act which we are discussing and the question which he wishes to discuss.

Mr. Mellish: This is extraordinary. It is a repetition of the previous debate. You were not in the Chair at the time, Sir Charles, but the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department then told the Chairman what he was supposed to do. The position is becoming quite extraordinary. The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland should look after his own business. The Chairman is quite able to tell me what to do, when to do it and how to do it.

The Chairman (Sir Charles MacAndrew): Any hon. Member on the Government Front Bench is just as much entitled to raise a point of order as is any other hon. Member.

Mr. Mellish: I was objecting to the right of anyone to tell you how to do your job, Sir Charles. Alongside you sits the learned Clerk, who, in my view, is more able to tell you how to do your job than is anyone else in the House.
The point is that the administrative and clerical workers are doing a clerical job which is associated with the 1938 Act.

Mr. Browne: No.

Mr. Mellish: I am told that they are. The Minister says that he is advised that


they are not, but I have advice, too, and it would not be the first time that the Ministry of Health had been wrongly advised. The Scottish Office is more often wrongly advised than not.

Mr. E. Fletcher: If my hon. Friend wants advice on the English law, no doubt the Attorney-General can supply it.

Mr. Mellish: As I was saying, these hospital workers are involved in a great deal of clerical work in following up the procedure of cancer registration.

Mr. Browne: On a point of order. The hon. Member is now referring to the cancer inquiry, and that involves the cancer registration scheme and has nothing to do with the 1938 Act or the Births and Deaths Registration Acts to which I referred in my previous intervention.

Mr. Parkin: I regret that the Under-Secretary of State did not follow my own arguments to the effect that the good will, co-operation and efficiency of these services depend upon what amounts to an integration. It is absurd to suggest that when a representative at Caxton Hall receives a call from St. George's Hospital about a stillborn child he asks. "Arc you seeking this information under the 1938 Act or under the Births and Deaths Registration Act?"

Mr. Mellish: I am trying to show what fine work is done by the members of the hospital staff. Here I am sure that I carry the Under-Secretary of State with me. They are a grand crowd of people doing a magnificent job. They get no publicity for their work and they are taken for granted. The only time they get publicity is when they do something wrong, and then they are knocked around either by the appropriate doctor or the nurse. Of course, they also get publicity when they apply for a wage increase and when an award of 3 per cent. is vetoed by the Minister. They then get all the publicity in the world.
I am trying to tell the Committee about some of the work which they do and which is not known. I have referred to the cancer inquiry and I am leading up to the population statistics. I have in my hand Form HLTIA. I hope the Under-Secretary of State will look at this. He can look it up, obtain advice, and see whether it comes under the 1938 Act.

This form has to be completed in order to obtain certain statistics for the Registrar-General—not for the hospital but for the Registrar-General. It has to be sent to him.

The Chairman: Order. If the hon. Member refers to the Schedule of the Act he will see that it details clearly the various matters which have to be dealt with, such as the age of the mothers and the dates of marriages. The hon. Member will find this on page 626. If he sticks to the Schedule he will be in order.

Mr. Mellish: As you say, Sir Charles, the questions include those about the age of the mother, the date of her marriage, the number of children the mother had by her present husband, how many of them are living, the number of children the mother had by any former husband and how many are living. Many of these details have to be provided and the forms filled in by the hospital staff on behalf of the patient.
This is the point which I am trying to establish. This Amendment gives us an opportunity—and it is a fair argument there is nothing facetious about it—to bring out once again what kind of a job these people are doing, and why they so bitterly resent the action and attitude of the present Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland. We are very grateful for the opportunity to throw sonic light on the fine work which they do. Unless an hon. Member is closely associated with the hospitals he can have no idea of the amount of clerical and administrative work required in running a big hospital.
I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Mr. Hastings) will catch your eye in this debate, Sir Charles, because he is an expert about medicine and about hospitals and can speak with personal knowledge over many years of the type of work done by hospital clerical stalls. I hope that he catches your eye, Sir Charles, although I do not suggest that he has any influence in that respect. He is a well-respected hon. Member who usually catches the eye of the Chair.
If I were to argue about the recent wage claim I should immediately be ruled out of order. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I think I should. I do not know which hon. Member is to reply to the debate or


whether the reply will be from Scotland or England. It does not much matter, because we shall get the same answer.
The question is, what problems do the Government expect, in the present state of affairs among the administrative and clerical staff, if this Act is continued? Do they expect that these statistics will be supplied as readily as previously, in view of the fact that thousands of these workers are operating an overtime ban? Would not the staff regard these statistics as unimportant by comparison with the general wellbeing of the patients, which they have guaranteed? If I were a member of the staff I would say that this sort of statistics took second place and that the priority was the welfare of the patient and his medical record.
These statistics may well, therefore, go by the board. What happens then? In replying about the problems of the staff in the hospital world, the present Minister of Health made it perfectly clear, with that smug, typical lawyer's attitude of his, that he was not very much concerned about the overtime ban and that it did not matter much to him. He thought that it seemed a huge joke and that he would wait and watch events. However, those who are operating the National Health Service and who have a keen interest in it take this matter very personally indeed. We know that the work of these men has been ignored over many years and we are glad that this debate gives an opportunity to throw light on some of the great work which they have done.
I hope that in his reply the Under-Secretary of State will be a little more forthcoming than the Minister in telling us how we can restore a happy atmosphere in this service—a service of which all who are associated with it are very proud indeed.
6.30 p.m.
There are no party politics about the National Health Service today; there have not been for the last few years. The work of the Service has been magnificent, and it is the pride of the world. Even the Tory Party takes some pleasure in it, for political purposes, and tries to use it to get votes. The fact is that the Service may be ruined by the stupidity of the Minister of Health in his dealings with

staff problems. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us what will happen if the staffs refuse to supply the kind of statistics which he wants. What will happen then? Will the Bill then become abortive?

Mr. Victor Collins: Even if I had the intention of doing so, I have neither the knowledge nor the skill to evade points of order. In any case there is every likelihood that I should become out of order. That being so, I want to deal with only one point, which I raised in an intervention when your deputy, Sir Charles, was in the Chair, and which I believe has an immediate relevance to the subject that we are discussing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) has become involved in an argument concerning the items covered in the Schedule and the work which has to be done in connection therewith by the administrative staffs of hospitals. In my earlier intervention I addressed a question to the Parliamentary Secretary which he did not answer, although his colleague, the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, intervened on several occasions. That probably means that what I am about to say is accepted. During this year hospital staffs have been requested by the Ministry of Health to record for the Registrar at Somerset House very full details concerning one in-patient in every ten, and to send the records to Somerset House.

Mr. J. N. Browne: Not under the Act we are discussing.

Mr. Collins: With respect, Sir Charles, there is no question that this work is being done by hospital staffs for the Registrar, and my point is that the Minister will almost certainly have to choose whether that work, or the work referred to by the Bill that we are now discussing, is to continue to be done. The information which it is now asked should be recorded on pro forma cards in respect of these patients covers the date of birth, sex, treatment, diagnosis, condition on entry and discharge, how urgent the case was, what operations were performed, where the patient went upon discharge—

Mr. Browne: indicated dissent.

Mr. Collins: It is no use the hon. Member shaking his head; this information was given to me by the assistant secretary of a hospital in my own division, who read it from the card he had. The information is required for the Registrar-General, and I am astonished that the Joint Under-Secretary should shake his head and apparently be unaware of it. The amount that he does not know is quite extraordinary.

The Chairman: I do not think that the point is covered by the Schedule.

Mr. Parkin: Surely, if there are directions by the Registrar-General under the powers of the Minister of Health that one patient in ten has to have all her details analysed we shall have at least one in ten being subjected to questions such as, "How many children have you had by this man? How many have you had by previous men? Why have you not had some more?"—all under the Schedule of this Act.

The Chairman: That is just the point; it does not come under the Schedule of the Act.

Mr. Collins: I quite accept that, Sir Charles. The card from which I have been reading does not ask for information which is required under the Act. My point is that the same staffs are required to provide the information that I have just been discussing as have to provide information under the Population (Statistics) Act, which is the subject under discussion, and the Minister will have to decide whether the staffs should provide the information about the one in ten patients or the information required under the Act. If he decides that they must supply the information about the one in ten patients, he must accept my hon. Friend's Amendment. In other words, he will have to drop the Population (Statistics) Act. I submit that everything that I have so far said is completely relevant and in order. I am quite sure that you will immediately tell me if it is not, Sir Charles.
I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will take note of the fact that I received this information from an assistant hospital secretary in my division this morning. He is a man who has to deal with administrative work in connection with 2,284 in-patients; 44,000 out-

patients, 185 deaths, and figures of that kind. Those were the figures for 1956. He told me that this one-in-ten survey was one of the additional tasks which nobody knew about but which the Minister of Health asked them to do, and which they did cheerfully. But he also said—and these were his words—it was one of the very things that would have to go.

Mr. Parkin: How much a week is he paid?

Mr. Collins: This assistant secretary is paid £13 a week, and the increase which was refused was in his case 8s.

Mr. Parkin: Good gracious.

Mr. Collins: I am glad that my hon. Friend asked that question because it puts the matter in the correct perspective. No one needs to remind hon. Members of the wonderful work done by these people—the self-sacrificing work which they carry on, especially in cases like that of the man to whom I have referred, who has spent all his life in hospital administration. He is qualified and has sat for examinations. He has been asked by his wife, "Why go on when the wage that you are getting is less than that earned by an industrial worker?" That is a completely relevant point.

Mr. Mellish: And does my hon. Friend realise that by this overtime ban the staffs are punishing themselves severely, because they have to work overtime to obtain a decent standard of living?

Mr. Collins: That is true. I know these people very well because I was a member of a regional hospital board. I was chairman of the mental health committee of that board for four years, and under the care of my committee were 17,000 beds. I know something of the great work done by these people, and the tremendous sacrifices that they make. It is an almost unheard thing for them to say "We will not do an extra job unless we get paid for it." Many have been doing a great deal of overtime for which they have not been getting paid. The man to whom I am referring does work for which he does not get paid. I see him in his office at nights working as secretary of the League of Friends of the hospital—an organisation of which I am president. That is an extra job which he does.
Which jobs will not continue to be done I do not know, except that they will be the ones which the staffs regard as of no immediate importance to the welfare of the patient. If a job requires to be done for the patient's health, and if it concerns his life, the staffs will stay up all night and do it, whether or not they get paid for it. The patients will not be allowed to suffer. But if the job consists of the gathering of a mass of statistics for which the staffs see no immediate purpose, and if it is just another of the extra burdens put upon them by the Minister without thanks or acknowledgement, it will not be done. Such jobs are being dropped already.
I ask the Parliamentary Secretary not to evade this question. This statistical work is being done by loyal, decent, underpaid and overworked people. They have been shocked to their very core by what has happened in the last few weeks. They feel that some of the work which they are doing—work which, in the Army, we used to call by a very descriptive term—need not be done any longer, and they are not going to do it because they are not paid for it.
Will the Minister therefore state which work he wants dropped? Does he want the staffs to drop the work in connection with the one in ten patients, or does he want them to drop the work in connection with the Population (Statistics) Act which we are now discussing? If he decides on the latter, he should accept this Amendment, because then the staffs will understand what he intends. But if he gives us what amounts to no answer at all, or attempts to evade the issue, then the administrative staffs throughout our hospitals will know that the Government not only expect them to go on being overworked and underpaid, but want them to continue to go on working for nothing, or to go on working under false pretences for the Government.

Mr. Orbach: I am very happy indeed to notice that we have refrained from accepting the advice given to us by the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. His interventions in the debate have shown quite clearly that he has no associations with hospitals and knows very little about them.
I want to show my interest in the matter by telling the Committee that I

have just been reappointed chairman of one of the biggest groups of hospitals. I have been chairman of that group for the past six years. I noted, Sir Charles, that in the Schedule to which you drew our attention on a number of occasions the matters on which particulars may be required are, one, registrations of birth or still-birth, and two, on registrations of death. Anybody who has any association at all with hospitals will know that in a big maternity department the registration of births—still-births in particular—is very often effected by one of the clerks at the hospital because of the state of health of the mother may prevent her from doing this. Certainly in one of the hospitals with which I am associated, where we have over 2,000 births a year, registration in this way takes place very frequently indeed. In the case of registration of death, where there is, of course, great distress on the part of all those associated with a deceased person, then the hospital staffs play a very great part indeed.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health and the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland should be well aware that, even if it is not true that the recent request for information with regard to carcinoma comes under this Act, morbidity, particularly in hospitals, does come under this Act. The administrative clerks who are employed in the record departments would be responsible for this work. I am very concerned about this matter, because I have a staff which is discontented but which, with all the good will in the world, desires to see that any ban on overtime which they might exercise does not in any way interfere with the complete recovery of the patient. I am appreciative that they will find it extremely difficult to supply the information that this Act requires. These people are not only very badly paid and every—body accepts that except the Minister—but they are heavily overworked. These people have been led to believe in the past that the very small remuneration which they now receive would be increased from time to time because of the exigencies of the services they are required to render.
I think it is trying to side-step the issue to suggest to this Committee that hospital administrative staffs and record clerks play no part in the collection of the vital statistics that are asked for in


this Schedule. I therefore support my hon. Friends in saying that it is asking too much of them to provide this information or other information which is outside the immediate health of the patients under the care of the medical staffs over and above the work they now do when we have a Minister of Health who goes against the grain in refusing them the modest increase for which they ask.

Mr. Mellish: Would my hon. Friend confirm from his personal experience that there is a grave likelihood that when the staff at his hospital decide what work they will or will not do the provision of the sort of statistics which are asked for here is not work with which they will deal?

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Orbach: That is obviously the case. I am not dealing with the 2,000 patients which my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreditch and Finsbury (Mr. Collins) was discussing. In my hospital there are not only 5,000 in-patients but an out-patients' roll of half a million per year, which I think means the highest number of statistics in the country. With the great strain of discontent put upon medical staffs over the last few years, the Minister ought to say, "You can forget all about these statistics. We will have somebody else to do them"—some other section of the Civil Service which has received better treatment than these people who have been discriminated against by the Minister should be asked to keep these statistics.

Mr. Willis: I rise only to make the point that exactly the same position as is obtaining in the English Health Service is also obtaining in the Scottish Health Service. We have the same serious position arising in our hospital services which has been indicated exists in England. Up to the present, the Secretary of State has been rather quiet about the matter. I am glad to see that the Joint Under-Secretary of State has not been so quiet, although I am bound to say that his interventions have not been very helpful. We have the same dissatisfaction in Scotland amongst these excellent workers in the Health Service.
I think we ought to have some indication from the Joint Under-Secretary of State of the position in Scotland. It took a very long time for my hon. Friends

to get any indication from the Minister regarding what was happening in the Health Service, and the effects of the recent events upon the work being done in it.
Of course, it is very relevant, when we consider whether or not we should continue with this Act, to consider whether we are likely to have our decision implemented in the circumstances that have arisen. Therefore, we ought to be told by the Joint Under-Secretary of State what the present position is in Scotland arising out of the dispute. What effect has it had on the clerical work being done? Is it, in fact, affecting the work that is done in connection with this provision? I think that we are entitled to know. After all, we are being asked to continue something, and we ought to be told what the effect is. Where is it having an effect? It must be having an effect somewhere even if it is not in connection with this Act.
I should have thought that the information asked for in the Population (Statistics) Act was of less importance than the clerical statistics required in order to achieve the recovery of the patient. If, as the Minister is suggesting, this work will not be affected, then there will be an effect somewhere else. If the men who perform this work decide to go slow or to stick to rule, or something like that, then obviously less work will be done. If it will not affect this work—which is not so important—then it will affect something else. That is logical. We ought to be told when we impose the work necessary in this provision upon these men what other work is to be stopped. The Under-Secretary of State ought to give us some indication of the position in Scotland. Up to the present we have been told nothing at all about the position of the National Health services in Scotland.

Mr. Mellish: Thoroughly disgraceful.

Mr. Willis: Of course it is disgraceful. The Secretary of State, who is himself responsible for a great Health Service, has been content to let an English Minister reply to English Members and say nothing more about it. We ought to have some indication of what the present position is. How is the clerical worker being affected? Is he being affected in such a way that we ought not to continue the provisions of this Act?
The public in Scotland would like to know what the position is. After all, they are the consumers and the people who might ultimately suffer. Actually, I do not think they will suffer because the people engaged in the Health Service are of such a character that they would do anything rather than allow the patients to suffer; but, if that is so, something else has got to suffer. We ought to know what the picture is.

Mr. E. Fletcher: While I agree with everything that my hon. Friends have said on this important subject, I differ from them in the conclusions that they have drawn.
It seems to me that quite enough has been said by my hon. Friends to make it abundantly clear that the operation of this Population (Statistics) Act cannot possibly be effectively carried out either in England or in Scotland without the good will and assistance of the administrative and clerical staffs in the hospitals. The whole of those staffs are aggrieved by the veto of the Minister of Health on the 3 per cent. increase recently awarded by the Whitley Council.
I regard this Bill as a capitulation by the Government to the protests which we have been making in the House in recent weeks and which have been sustained by a great volume of protest throughout the country. It is quite obvious to me that the Government, from the Prime Minister downwards, have been looking for an opportunity gracefully to overthrow the absurd veto of the Minister of Health. It seems quite irreconcilable to assume that the Government could both intend to proceed with this Bill and at the same time persist in that veto of the 3 per cent. increase.
I may be wrong, but I do not think I am. No doubt the Minister is speaking with the authority of the Government. In parenthesis, I should like to say that it is somewhat significant that neither the Minister of Health nor the Secretary of State for Scotland are with us. Now I begin to understand their absence. Obviously, it would be difficult for the Minister of Health to eat his own words and personally to retract the veto that he has imposed.
The Prime Minister was in a great difficulty the other day. What has happened? The Government have brought forward

this Bill. They are asking the Committee to renew for another year the operation of an Act which they know cannot possibly be carried out without the good will of the administrative and clerical staffs, and they know that since the imposition of this overtime ban, since this policy of "meticulosis", they must do one thing or the other. They must either withdraw the Bill or they must concede the right and just claim for the 3 per cent. increase. I do not think they are deceiving this House or the country by the subterfuge. They have decided to proceed with the Bill and, having taken that decision, they must obviously be deemed to have taken all the decisions that are consequent upon it.
One of the inevitable consequences of proceeding with the Bill, as has been pointed out with such cogency, is that the Government will have to concede the demand for the 3 per cent. increase. If they were not intending to concede that demand, they ought not to have the effrontery to ask Parliament to renew the Act for another year. I understand that it may be humiliating for the Government to go back on a decision of the Minister of Health, but I give them credit for having come to the conclusion that it is inevitable that they should do so.
It seems to me that this is the kind of way in which they have decided to do it. The country is very interested. The whole of the medical staff, patients, the medical profession and everybody else are watching this. They all know that the whole of the arbitration machinery would fall to the ground unless the Government withdrew from a foolish decision which was made when the Minister of Health imposed this veto.
If I am right in assuming that it is now only a matter of a few days before the Government announce the repudiation of the veto by the Minister of Health, I think I could excuse them for having tried to produce that result by this rather circuitous method of presenting to the House a Bill which would be completely inconsistent with any other decision of the Government.

Dr. Summerskill: May I say a few words before we have a reply from the Government Front Bench. What has been most striking about this debate is the way in which the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland and, in part,


the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health have endeavoured to curtail the debate. Indeed, if the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland had had his way, he would have stifled the debate entirely. Fortunately, Sir Charles, we have been protected by you whom we all recognise as an authority on Parliamentary procedure.
I suggest that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health should familiarise themselves with the business of their Departments, because by trying to stifle us tonight they have revealed undoubtedly that they know nothing about the subject under discussion. There are present in the Chamber a large number of hon. Members who are very familiar with the subject, and I regard it as an affront to us that on an important matter of this kind the Government have thought fit to send two representatives who are obviously ignorant of the whole subject.
In order to emphasise the points made by my hon. Friends, I want to say, first of all, that in my opinion they are entirely justified in raising this matter tonight because this is the very first occasion that we have had to illustrate the points which we made during last week when the question of the 3 per cent. cut was raised. Only yesterday the Minister of Health came to the House and tried to defend himself once more, and I then asked whether he was aware that the most important part of the successful treatment of a patient was to keep detailed records.
This Measure is precisely related to that point. The Schedule says that on registration of births or stillbirths the age of the mother, the date of the marriage and the number of children of the mother by her present husband have all to be recorded. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health should have known before he came here this evening that in a maternity hospital all these details have to be taken, and then given back to the Registrar by a clerical worker. Does he think that women go into our maternity hospitals to have their babies without all these details being taken? Does he think that the doctors, the nurses and the midwives take all these details?
Here we come to the enormity of the offence of the Minister of Health in not

conceding the Whitley award. Once more the Government have taken action hastily without recognising what the repercussions would be. The repercussions will be such that, very soon, we shall have the Minister of Health coming here and having to admit that he has made a mistake.
Here was an opportunity for my hon. Friends tonight to show how important these clerical workers have become. We are here discussing the Population (Statistics) Act, 1938, quite a small Act, which my hon. Friends have sought to amend. It is an Act which calls for the work of these clerical workers, and we should not forget the vast range of functions which they are called upon to perform, not only during the day but at night also when patients come in.
On behalf of my hon. Friends, Sir Charles, I thank you for realising the importance of the debate and protecting us when the representatives of the Government made every attempt to stifle discussion and stop my hon. Friends from speaking.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Robert Edwards: When I visited the hospital in my constituency on Tuesday of this week, I was amazed at the discontent which prevailed there, in what previously, before the decision of the Minister of Health, had been one of the happiest institutions which it has ever been my pleasure to visit. If the work provided for under the 1938 Act is to be done efficiently and well, we must have harmony in the Health Service. This enormous job can be done only if every unit in the Service is co-operating to achieve the aims of the Service. The co-operation which has characterised the Service for so many years is being destroyed by the most stupid act imaginable, and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will convey to the Minister the spirit of our debate this evening. The Minister ought—

Mr. Willis: The Ministers. My hon. Friend should include the Secretary of State for Scotland.

Mr. Edwards: Yes; we must not overlook Scotland.
The Minister of Health has a special responsibility in this matter. First of all, he knows or should know intimately the responsibilities undertaken by the workers in the health services, because for many


years he was each year the guest speaker before the union concerned. Indeed, he was its adviser. I hope I may be forgiven for saying that he received a modest fee for his advice before becoming Minister. It is a very bitter and cruel blow to the workers and to the union that a Minister who was so closely associated with them in their work, and received modest fees for his work—

Mr. Mellish: How much?

Mr. Edwards: About £5 a week I believe—£250 a year. There is no reason why it should not be known.
It seems to me that a good service would be done by the Parliamentary Secretary and the Joint Under-Secretary of State if they conveyed to their Ministers the feeling displayed in this debate today.

Mr. Mellish: My hon. Friend is very well known in trade union life, and I hope he will take the point fairly from me when I say that it is not only the staffs in the health services about whom we are speaking now. The whole matter is much wider than that. The entire trade union movement has gone on record as bitterly opposing the decision of the Minister. We have now not just the immediate issue, as my hon. Friend knows, but the whole principle of Whitleyism being maintained in this country in future. The full ramifications of the problem are very great indeed.

Mr. Edwards: Yes. The point my hon. Friend makes is of fundamental importance. All our relations in industry and the public services are in jeopardy. During 100 years we have built up one of the most efficient systems of collective bargaining in the world. Indeed, it is the admiration of the world. The result is that we have fewer strikes in this country than in almost any other. Apart from Western Germany and Holland, we lose fewer days per thousand of the industrial population through industrial disputes than does any other country in the world.
We are witnessing now the beginning of an offensive against our collective bargaining system. The workers in the health services are being attacked, and in the past those workers have been the most co-operative trade unionists in the country. That is why we feel so strongly.

It is not a political issue. It is no longer a trade union issue. It has now become a national issue, a threat to the harmony of the country's services, particularly the Health Service.
Though we do not expect the Parliamentary Secretary or the Joint Under-Secretary of State to be able to do anything about it today, we beg them to convey to their Ministers what we on this side of the Committee feel about the decision of the Minister of Health and the effect of that decision upon the Health Service.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Richard Thompson): We have had an interesting and wide ranging debate on this matter, although at times, in listening to it, I was hard put to it, I confess, to realise that what we were discussing was whether we should go on keeping some population statistics or not. It seemed to me that we were discussing very much wider matters. I make no complaint at all about that, but it might be worth while if I brought the Committee back to what the Bill tries to do and what the effects would be if the Bill were not re-enacted. More than one hon. Gentleman asked me about that.
The information derived from the Population (Statistics) Act, 1938, is essential for the purpose of establishing more accurately than we could otherwise the trends in the size of families and fertility of women and thus making realistic estimates of the size of the population and its components in future years. The information is obtained by the registrar of births and deaths at the time of registration of births and deaths. It is strictly confidential and is not included in the public registers. It is processed and analysed in the General Register Office and is regularly published, with commentary, in the Registrar-General's Annual Statistical Review.
The hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) began by asking whether we ever obtained any result out of all this work—did we ever get something which brought all the figures together and enabled some conclusions to be drawn? The answer is that we do get this Annual Review, which I commend to the hon. Gentleman's attention; it contains a great fund of information.

Mr. Parkin: Would the hon. Gentleman say what effect it has had upon the


birth rate? Would he say how many people who are prevented from having babies because they cannot get houses are comforted by reading the Registrar-General's Annual Statistical Review?

Mr. Thompson: The hon. Gentleman will realise that questions about housing are for my right hon. Friend.
Those who make use of the information provided in this way are people such as the Government Actuary and the Registrar-General. They would be very much handicapped in their duties if the additional information obtained under the 1938 Act ceased to be available as a result of the wish of some hon. Gentlemen opposite to drop the Act from the Schedule.
If the Act were not continued, the authority for obtaining all this additional information would cease from 31st December, and registrars would be unable to demand it. The continuity of a long series of statistics would be broken. That would greatly detract from their value, and that, I think, would not really appeal to the Opposition as a whole, for although I realise that this debate has been raised to draw attention to certain matters, I think the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish), for instance, is not really opposed to this kind of information continuing to be available. I do not think he would want his words today to have their logical, technical effect of bringing this enactment to an end.

Mr. Mellish: The hon. Gentleman has sought to restrict the matters for discussion, and if he and the Minister refuse to make statements when we ask them to make them, or we are not helped in putting a case, we have to take every legitimate means we can of trying to put our point of view.

Mr. Parkin: The hon. Gentleman has not touched yet on the relative value of the sort of statistics which have to be compiled by the clerical staffs. It is not good enough to tell me that the figures come out in the Report of the Registrar-General. If something has to be sacrificed, he should tell us what it is he is prepared to sacrifice. Moreover, since he has said that we have until 31st December before any of these arrangements are in jeopardy, would it not be a very proper thing to agree to postpone

the remaining stages of the Bill in order that we can defer a decision on the Act until the Minister has had an opportunity of making a statement that he is going to consider the increases and withdraw his veto? If he will not, is that an indication that the Government are not prepared to make any concession this year?

Mr. Thompson: I was about to say—

Mr. Mellish: Answer.

Mr. Thompson: —that I proposed to deal with the remarks the hon. Gentleman made in a little more detail in a minute or two. I will turn now to his speech. He started by mentioning matters of housing and things of that kind, H-bomb tests and so forth. Part of the value of these statistics is that they provide such information as fertility information, and I should have thought that if that flow of information is to be continued—and I thought the hon. Gentleman wanted it not only to be continued but to be made more ample and more detailed—that would be a reason not for failing to re-enact this legislation but for re-enacting it and, perhaps, contriving if possible that the information supplied should be even fuller than it is now. It does not seem to me that this would be consistent with his professed purpose, which was to stop this Act from being brought into force again.
The hon. Gentleman, like several of his hon. Friends, made great matter of this, that hospital staffs were greatly involved in the preparation of these statistics and returns, and that, therefore, in view of the dispute which exists now, we should be in some difficulty in obtaining all this information in future unless that difficulty were resolved. I think I have put the matter fairly. It is one on which a number of other hon. Members also commented in their speeches.
I must make this quite clear. The Act of 1938 puts the duty of supplying the information required by the Act on those persons who are required by law to give information for the purpose of the registration of a birth or death, primarily on the near or distant relatives. There is no express obligation upon the hospitals as such under the Act of 1938 or in the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1953.
A good deal of this discussion has been conducted on the basis that it is the hospital staffs who will have to supply—or, rather, go on supplying—all this kind of information. That is not the case.

Mr. Mellish: Is the hon. Gentleman saying the hospital staffs do not do any of this work in conjunction with the Registrar-General?

Mr. Thompson: I am not saying they do riot do any of this work.

Mr. Mellish: Ah.

Mr. Thompson: I am saying the great majority of it does not fall upon hospital staffs and does not fall upon people in the National Health Service.

7.15 p.m.

Dr. Summerskill: Who does the hon. Gentleman think takes the particulars of this kind when a woman has a pre-natal examination? The Registrar-General or the hospital staff?

Mr. Thompson: I would refer the right hon. Lady—

Mr. Mellish: Answer the question.

Mr. Thompson: This is quite relevant to my answer.
I would refer the right hon. Lady to the 1938 Act itself and to the Schedule to that Act, which, indeed, she quoted. If she will have a look at that, as I have no doubt she has done, she will find that these particulars are of a kind which are not, I agree, in every case but are in a great number of cases perfectly capable of being reported by the parents or other relatives concerned at the registrar's office, which is the proper place to file that kind of information.

Dr. Summerskill: This is such an astonishing statement the hon. Gentleman has made. Does he not realise that when a woman is going to have a baby and goes to hospital she does not go to the Registrar-General before she goes to the hospital to give all these particulars? She goes to the hospital; she is examined; and then all these particulars are taken from her. Surely he realises that he must be realistic? This is elementary. I should have thought that this was one of the first things he would have learned in his Department—or in his social life.

Mr. Thompson: Of course this kind of information has to be made available at the hospital. What I am saying is that the 1938 Act lays no express obligation on the hospital authorities to furnish that information to the registrar. That is the point.

Mr. Parkin: rose—

Mr. Thompson: The hon. Gentleman has made a considerable speech—

Mr. Mellish: A very good speech it was.

Mr. Thompson: —and has intervened on more than one occasion in mine, and there are other hon. Member's speeches also about which I want to say a word or two, and I should like to proceed.

Mr. Parkin: I wondered if the hon. Gentleman did not want to say a kind word about those people who do this work.

Mr. Thompson: I should be out of order, in view of the Ruling your predecessor in the Chair, Sir Charles, made, in attempting to follow the hon. Gentleman the Member for Paddington, North in the excursion he made into this pay dispute, as he was apparently under the impression at the time that it was the hospital staffs in the main who were going to be involved in the collection of these statistics, an impression which, as I have shown, is not correct.

Mr. Mellish: On a point of order. You have allowed a debate, Sir Charles, in the last hour or so in which matters concerning the dispute and the unhappiness of the staffs have been raised, in relation to the question whether these statistics should be available. Are we not entitled in the Government's reply to the debate to get some assurance about how this dispute can be dealt with and solved in order that the happiness of the staffs may be restored and that we may have good statistics? Is that not right?

The Chairman: I do not think it is.

Mr. Mellish: If it was in order earlier, why is it not in order now?

The Chairman: I have not said it was in order. I did my best to stop it.

Mr. Parkin: Is it in order for the Parliamentary Secretary to ignore all the parts of my speech relevant to the matter


in question and then, as it were, to raise a point of order of his own to refuse to refer to any of the rest of my speech?

The Chairman: I am not responsible for Ministers' speeches. I do not write them.

Mr. Thompson: I am grateful for your Ruling in that matter, Sir Charles.
I should now like to proceed with the point I was making about the remarks of the hon. Member for Bermondsey. First of all, let me assure him with complete sincerity that I entirely take his point about the excellent, loyal and cooperative work done by this class of employee about whom this dispute has arisen. I agree with him about that.
Secondly, he asked me what problems we expect in the provision of these statistics because of the present differences in the hospital world. He also wanted to know what would be the general effect of the overtime ban on this kind of return. This information is not, in the main, provided by hospital staffs. A great deal of it is of a very routine character and is provided by patients or their relatives to the local registration officers. Because of that, I do not expect that we shall run into any great difficulty. Events will show.
The hon. Member for Shoreditch and Finsbury (Mr. Collins) referred to the details of treatment and diagnosis, and similar matters, which had to be entered on cards. Apparently all these remarks were made under the impression that this kind of information was required under the Act by the Registrar-General.

Mr. Collins: It is within the recollection of the Committee that I made it perfectly clear that this was a recording being taken this year at the request of the hon. Member's Department for the Registrar-General. I introduced that only to ask a question—whether that work should be done or this other work to which hon. Members have referred.

Mr. Thompson: The kind of information in question here which we require as priority is that which is called for in the Schedule to the 1938 Act. The hon. Member for Shoreditch and Finsbury suggested that we could not have it all ways. As I said to the hon. Member for Bermondsey, I do not think it likely that the information on the kind of subjects which

the Act requires will be seriously affected at all.

Mr. Mellish: But it is a risk.

Mr. Thompson: I would not go as far as the hon. Member for Bermondsey; I would not even say that it amounted to much of a risk. My own view is that just because so much of this information is not required from hospital sources, we shall continue to get it.
The hon. Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Orbach) spoke about the registration of births and deaths in hospitals. He is not now in his place, and perhaps if I deal with his remarks briefly that will be in accordance with the wishes of the Committee. In those casts the information which is supplied to the registrar by the hospital would generally be on a voluntary basis and not under any requirement of the law. The legal duty falls on the relatives.

Mr. William Ross: Not everybody has relatives. A great many old people who die in hospital have no relatives. In such a case the Registrar-General is dependent entirely on the cooperation of the hospital staff for the information they have in relation to the time of death and other matters. The hon. Member cannot slip over that point quite so easily.

Mr. Thompson: The time of death is not information under the Schedule of the Act required to be provided to the registrar. Nevertheless, I take the hon. Member's point that sometimes there is a situation in which an elderly person dies in hospital who has no ascertainable relatives. In such a case there may be no obvious person to supply the information. I said earlier that there is a voluntary arrangement, not laid on the hospital by law, whereby the registrar is informed of these matters. I do not think that providing the information in the kind of case which the hon. Member mentions will make all that difference.
In replying to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) I am perhaps treading on egg shells, because I do not know whether he expects me to discuss Scottish matters. He asked what different effect we expected the continuation of the pay dispute to have on the flow of information for the registration offices.

Mr. Willis: In Scotland.

Mr. Thompson: My hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State advises me that he expects no effect whatever.

Mr. Willis: I have no objection to the hon. Member doing his best to assist the Committee in bringing the debate to a close, but I must most vigorously protest that on every occasion concerning this matter there has been an English Minister speaking for Scotland, although we have our own Scottish Secretary of State and a Joint Under-Secretary of State responsible for these services. I think it is time that these gentlemen accepted their responsibility to the House in that connection.

Mr. Thompson: That is not a matter for me. When my hon. Friend intervened a little earlier his intervention was not particularly well taken by some hon. Members opposite.
The right hon. Lady the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summerskill) was extremely severe and censorious when she made a few concluding remarks for the party opposite. I say this with a due sense of humility, speaking of someone who has great experience of the hospital world, as no one in the Committee would deny for a single moment. I recognise that she has devoted her life to these matters. Nevertheless, considering her remarks as a whole, it seemed to me that she, too, assumed that the great bulk of the work involved in providing these returns would fall on hospital employees under the National Health Service. It has been my object to maintain that this is not so and that therefore the concern in this matter is misplaced.
In conclusion, I do not believe that we should allow a dispute which we all hope will be temporary and which nobody supposes will be permanent to hold up the re-enactment of this useful Act, which we have re-enacted regularly since 1948 when it originally expired and which in 1952 hon. Members opposite were anxious not only to re-enact but to incorporate in more permanent legislation in order to make it a much better Act.
I hope that the hon. Member for Bermondsey and his hon. Friends, who this evening have maintained their point of View and made very interesting speeches on a matter of great current concern, will

feel on reflection that, while it has not been possible to say much on that part of the problem in debating this rather limited Bill, they will be well advised to think again and withdraw the Amendment. I cannot feel that any of the purposes that they have had at heart in these matters would be served if we did not re-enact the Act for a further period of one year.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Ross: We have had an explanation of why this Act should be re-enacted for another year. In the course of that explanation we have been told so much about the statistics being so vital and necessary that it promotes the obvious question, to which we have had no answer, of why on earth we are doing this on a yearly basis. The Parliamentary Secretary has referred to the 1952 debate. I spoke in that debate and I said that the Royal Commission on Population had spoken of the inadequacy of population statistics and the desirability of obtaining a full measure of the tendencies in relation to population.
A long time has passed since then, and the Government have had ample opportunity to introduce a serious Bill to deal with the matter. We have had a long explanation from the Parliamentary Secretary in reply to the debate, but he has not once justified the fact that the Act is being continued for only one more year. He hardly referred to that fundamental fact in relation to an expiring law. I suggest, therefore, that we should now have the opportunity of hearing one of our many Joint Under-Secretaries of State for Scotland. He might tell us why we have not been able to secure a permanent Bill for Scotland embodying all the requirements in relation to population statistics which in England are thought by the Registrar-General and others to be very important.
What about the Registrar-General for Scotland? It is now over a fortnight since the House of Commons reassembled and we have not yet had any meetings of the Scottish Grand Committee. In our usual speedy way in that Committee, we should have been pretty well on our way by now to dealing with an important Bill of this kind.
I presume that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland will reply to my questions. Therefore, I ask him


to tell us, first, how important this flatter is for Scotland. Secondly, if it is important, why, after all these years, is this purely temporary legislation? Thirdly, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will answer the question, which was put so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis). I hope that he will tell us whether the efficiency of his Ministry will be jeopardised by the events now taking place in relation to clerical workers, who may not be directly responsible for the administration of the provisions of the Act but who, if they withhold their cooperation, will jeopardise the collection of these statistics and will impose more work on the staff of the Registrar-General for Scotland.
We have had no information at all on the wider and more important aspect of the effect of this dispute on the hospital services in Scotland. Silence has again descended upon St. Andrew's House, and any speeches made in the debate have been made by English speakers. Here is the Joint Under-Secretary's great opportunity. He has no Secretary of State for Scotland, no Lord Advocate and no Solicitor-General for Scotland to worry about. I doubt whether he has even a Parliamentary Private Secretary to worry about. Let him seize this chance and make a name for himself in Scotland by telling us what is happening. It would not be a bad idea if, at the same time, he resigned in disgust at the way in which his colleagues have handled affairs in relation to Scotland.

Mr. J. N. Browne: I am sure that it is not necessary for me to repeat the arguments put forward by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health. Therefore, I will confine myself to answering the questions asked by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross). He asked how important this Measure was for Scotland. It is not more or less important for Scotland than it is for England. Whatever Government are in power, it is very necessary to have this sort of information.

Mr. Ross: It is all very well to say that we must have the information. The hon. Gentleman cannot justify it by merely saying that we must have it. Why must we have it? What use does he make of the information after he has got it?

Mr. Browne: The hon. Member is very keen on planning ahead and one cannot possibly plan ahead without the fullest information about births, marriages, deaths, the medical side, housing and schools. These are the bases on which information is given to the House of Commons.

Mr. Parkin: Do the countries of the Bagdad Pact collect this information?

Mr. Browne: I was also asked why we should continue this Act as temporary legislation, and why we did not enact it permanently. Before permanent legislation can be enacted, consideration needs to be given to how far the needs of research into the hazards to man of nuclear energy and allied radiations justify the obtaining at birth, death and marriage of further information on the genetic effects of those hazards. These are new hazards. The nation may well decide that a new set of information is needed and, therefore, we do not want to enact this Measure into permanent legislation which limits the questions that we can ask. And we want to be quite sure that we are asking the right questions.
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock also asked whether the efficiency of the administration was being jeopardised. I can honestly assure him that the efficiency of the administration to which we are referring tonight will not be jeopardised in any way by the dispute.

Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman said that this information was essential for planning ahead. Did statistics obtained as a result of this Act being on the Statute Book last year lead the Government to cut down on housing in Scotland?

Mr. Browne: No, Sir.

Mr. Willis: It is all very well for the Joint Under-Secretary to say that the dispute will not affect the operation of this legislation, but we are asking, and we are entitled to know, about the present position in Scotland. We do not know and we are being asked to make a decision concerning this legislation without that knowledge. The hon. Gentleman has already been asked twice, and I will ask him again to give us an idea of the situation in the Scottish hospital service as a result of the present dispute so that we can make up our minds whether or


not the re-enactment of this legislation is desirable and whether it is desirable to continue to impose this additional burden on the clerical staff.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Ross: I beg to move, in page 3, to leave out lines 14 and 15.
These lines refer to the Education (Exemptions) (Scotland) Act, 1947, the Act being continued for another year. It is probably as well to get into the picture right away, and we can see from the Explanatory Memorandum that the Act:
…authorises the employment of children over 13 years of age for ingathering the potato crop and secures their exemption from attendance at school for that purpose where the Secretary of State is satisfied that other labour is insufficient.
The first thing this means is that for another year the Secretary of State proposes to take out of the hands of local education authorities the power to refuse any application for exemption from parents of children who wish those children to harvest potatoes. In all other cases of exemption the local authority can say "No", but where it is a matter of the ingathering of the potato harvest the Secretary of State takes the power, as he has done since 1947, to over-ride the local authority and to insist that if the parent applies for the child to be taken from school to pick potatoes, then it must pick potatoes.
7.45 p.m.
Many local authorities throughout Scotland refuse to co-operate, which means that they do not give any great information to the children about this requirement. When, however, parents make application, they are helpless and more or less have to allow the children to go.
It was laid down when the Act was introduced in 1947 that it would last for only two years, so that by 1949 there should have been the usual power given to local authorities to grant or to refuse as they thought fit in accordance with their own estimate of the needs of the children or of agriculture in relation to exemptions. But it has gone on all this time, and year after year a variety of Joint Under-Secretaries of State have told us that they hoped that next year would see the last of it.—[An HON. MEMBER: "No."]—Oh, yes, they have said that.

As a matter of fact, I have a note of all the hopes that were expressed.
One hoped that the time was in sight, but the time was not yet in sight. That was in 1956. If we go still farther back we find that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Henderson-Stewart) looked forward to the time when we would be able to dispense with the Act. But it goes on and on and on, and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dumfries (Mr. N. Macpherson) was the torch bearer last year. Now we have a third one at the Box tonight, the latest Joint Under-Secretary. Will he give us more hopeful information?
The fact is that last year more exemptions were given to the children for the harvest than the year before. There were about 28,400 exemptions, about 1,000 or so more than in the year before. Therefore, instead of things getting better, they are getting worse. As most of us who have been interested in this matter know, the number of exemptions went down between 1948 and 1955, from 40,000 to 26,000. Then last year they went up to 28,400. Can we be told what happened this year?
We cannot always judge by the steady reduction year by year in the number of children granted exemption, because holidays are now changed within schools to suit the potato harvest. This does not happen in England, so there is every reason why this should be a matter of amusement to the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department as it appears to be.
The total number of children used in Scotland in 1956 was 41,500, and the difference between the exemption figure and the total figure is explained by the fact that in certain parts of the country holidays have been staggered. Education has actually been chopped and changed in order to suit the requirements of those responsible for harvesting potatoes. This may be suitable for some people, but it is not suitable for anyone concerned with education or with its administration in Scotland. This is not just a matter of two or three days. Often, as the figures given by an hon. Member show, it means three weeks; in one case it was 25 days, and in many others these exemptions were in addition to the actual "potato holidays" given. So here we have a situation in 1956 where we still depend on


over 41,000 Scottish children to harvest potatoes.
We have to take the word of the Rose Committee that, if children were not available for this work, the potatoes would not be harvested. We can send Sputniks into space, but apparently we cannot get spuds out of the ground without the aid of schoolchildren. What a crazy civilisation we have. I want to discover exactly what is being clone to get rid of this provision. It is nothing of which we should be proud. Indeed, we ought to be ashamed of it. We keep on telling the world that education and the care of children means more to us in Scotland than anyone else, but we find that in England a parent who keeps a child from school to go hop picking is subject to a fine. That is not the position in Scotland; children are given help by St. Andrew's House to enable them to harvest potatoes.
What I say is emphasised if we discover which children do the potato harvesting. In Scotland we have senior secondary schools where the children have to spend at least five years, junior secondary schools where the children spend at most three years, and the private, independent schools, which are called public schools in England. Practically 90 per cent. of the children who harvest potatoes in Scotland come from the junior secondary schools. They are the three-year people.
The hon. Gentleman who last year was in charge of agriculture is this year in charge of education in Scotland, and he knows that what I am saying is true. The junior secondary schools are the schools to which the children go from the primary schools. In most cases it means that there is a break. They go to the new school at the beginning of September. Going to a new school is in itself a cause of restiveness, and the children do not quickly settle down. However, they are hardly there before they are away for three weeks for the potato harvest.
In the debate last year it was stated that 42 per cent. of the children over the age of 13 in Dundee went potato harvesting. If one takes it that most of them came from the junior secondary schools, it means that for three weeks those schools were marking time. Thus, there is one upset added to another upset, and it is long after Christmas before the children settle down. Yet we wonder why there are problems in relation to junior

secondary schools. That happens when the child is 13, and it happens the following year also. We are denying vital weeks to children who are getting less secondary education than others.
Very few children indeed from the senior secondary schools go potato harvesting, and I doubt if any at all go from the private, independent schools, certainly not more than a handful. My hon. Friends and I are concerned about this from a class point of view as well. It appears to be the children of the working class who do the potato harvesting. If a similar attitude were taken to that of those in the private schools, I wonder how the potatoes would be harvested. That is the challenge that the Government would have to meet. Those responsible for research into agricultural machinery would also have to meet it, and I am sure it would be met.
There are farmers who do not require school children to gather their potatoes. I do not say that that is possible in all circumstances, but I should like the Joint Under-Secretary responsible for agriculture to say whether there is any more evidence that farmers have been using adult gangs for potato lifting and whether the hopes held last year by the hon. Member for Dumfries about the development of an efficient potato harvester have become any brighter. The hon. Gentleman then told us about the difficulties of the development of such a machine and gave us an assurance that they were being tackled with skill and vigour, not only by the Government research establishments but by other enterprises which were being encouraged as far as possible by the Government. May we be told how far advanced that development is now?
It is not right that one section of the population should suffer an educational handicap year after year. My hon. Friends and I realise the importance of the potato crop to Scotland from the point of view of consumption and the supply of seed potatoes, and it was a Labour Government which introduced the Act, but it was introduced as a temporary measure and we hoped that we should get rid of it long before 1957.
We are determined to raise this subject every year. We must never feel that so long as children are available we do not need to push on with research


into agricultural machinery or to organise gangs of adult workers to lift potatoes. We lift all our early potatoes in Ayrshire without using children, and I am sure that, with proper organisation, this could be done throughout Scotland. I know the difficulties—we have heard about them from the hon. Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan)—but we ought not to be complacent about the matter.
This is a clash between agriculture and education, and it is education which suffers every year. We have enough to worry about in Scottish education without having to argue this case every year. I hope we shall be given some satisfactory information by the Joint Under-Secretary.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. William Hannan: I wish, briefly, to add some words in support of what my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) has already uttered in protest against the continuation of this provision. It is readily conceded that it was introduced in time of stress in the immediate post-war years, and those who know the great interest which many of my hon. Friends take in education will appreciate that it was with the greatest reluctance that it was introduced. Since then, however, many years have passed. The Conservative Government of 1951 stated that the economy would be improved so greatly that we thought that by this time the present Government would have examined this problem. Local authorities are once more protesting to Members of Parliament at the continuation of this practice. The City of Glasgow has sent a letter to all Glasgow Members of Parliament asking that this provision should be opposed because of the interference with the education of many Glasgow children.
The Rose Report on the Employment of Children in the Potato Harvest showed that in 1955 the number of children employed in this work was 40,608 of whom 26,009 were exempted. In 1956 the figure employed had risen to 41,500 with 28,400 exemptions. Local authorities have power to exempt children at the age of fourteen in cases of exceptional hardship in the home. My figures for those children show a tendency to decrease,

which is an earnest of the desire of local authorities that education facilities should be maintained at the highest possible level. In Glasgow, for example, the number of exemptions for exceptional hardship in the home was 706 in 1953–54, 677 in 1954–55, and 506 in 1955–56.

Mr. Ross: I do not want to quarrel with my hon. Friend's figures, but, strangely enough, the figure for the whole of Scotland is smaller than that. Last year it was 506.

Mr. Hannan: I have made a mistake. I should have said that those were the figures for Scotland, not for Glasgow. They show that the last thing local authorities will do is to grant exemptions to such children.
In paragraph 8 the Rose Report stresses the importance of the potato crop, as did the Joint Under-Secretary in our debate last year. It indicates that in proportion to population the acreage in Scotland devoted to potatoes is twice that of England and Wales. It mentions the dependence of England and Wales on seed potatoes from Scotland—Scotland provides half the needs of England and Wales, due, of course, to climatic conditions.
What progress has been made in research into the virus disease to which the Report refers? Are we not entitled to expect that England and Wales should make a greater contribution towards that research? I should have thought it better that more money should be spent on that purpose in the interests of the education of Scottish children than that there should be interference with their education.
The Report refers to the effect on the balance of payments position which the production of potatoes in Scotland has. That reference makes some of us smile, because it is hardly for the Government to take that line when by their own actions they have endangered the balance of payments position in so many other ways because of their intense desire to maintain a free market rather than plan production, which would help the situation immeasurably. Educationists have protested vehemently at what is happening. Some of them say that the children who apply for exemptions are those who are weakest scholastically and that those who take part in the potato harvest


frequently come from poorer homes and are the children in greatest need of their education.
Paragraph 27 of the Report says:
We enquired into the possibility of assistance from the Armed Forces and were told that the potentiality is negligible as the number of service units in Scotland is small but in any ease such assistance as is available is taken into account before school children are called upon.
In this matter we are treading on difficult ground. We recognise what the first task of the Army must be, but it is time that we faced the issue. In the interests of the country's economy it would be better for education to be preserved and assisted and some alternative source of labour found. Despite what the Report says, has the Joint Under-Secretary any information about the number of Service units in Scotland at any time? How many men in the Armed Forces are in Scotland? While there should be no compulsion, could not some appeal be made to the Armed Forces for men to be used for this purpose? These men would be needed for only six weeks and we all recognise the importance of the harvest.
I refuse to accept the argument that the potato harvest makes a great contribution to the solvency of the nation when it is clone in this way. Indeed, a very strong argument can be advanced that the opposite is the case, that in the long run more resources for education would do more to solve the country's economic problems.
Is the Joint Under-Secretary of State satisfied that the payment made to these children is safeguarded? I would refer to a report which appeared in the Daily Herald on 15th November, 1957, of a case not in Scotland but in England, which shows the sort of thing that can happen. Has the Minister any reports from local authorities or those who supervise children of any shortcomings in this regard?
The report concerned a girl in the North of England who called a meeting of six of her chums because, after three and a half hours at potato lifting, they were each paid 2s. 6d. The girl wrote to the local trades council asking whether they had been paid the right amount. The trades council, after making inquiries through the National Union of Agricultural Workers, found that the girls

should have been paid at the rate of 1s. 2d. an hour. Though the girls may not be able to recover the sums owing to them in this instance, it is hoped that in future that rate will be respected.
These are things which are exercising the minds of hon. Members on all sides of the Committee. Probably the Joint Under-Secretary will make the usual Departmental answer, but we ask him seriously to keep probing and to seek co-operation from the Armed Forces. That might go a long way towards helping to solve the problem.

Sir James Duncan: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) referred to the employment of children. I must say frankly that unless we get this labour, particularly in the midland part of Scotland—Angus, Perth and Fife—potatoes just will not be grown by the farmer, or seed potatoes for the English farmer. If we cannot get children we shall have to import potatoes. Indeed, this year, even with the children, we have had to import.
This is a practical problem and I want to show its practicality. It is necessary that these things should be said. I do not in the least quarrel with the speech made by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross). He put the case very moderately, admitting that there was something to be said on the other side. I do not disagree with his speech. Speaking as an Angus farmer, and I am pretty certain for the majority of farmers in Scotland, I say that we would like to get rid of this labour and to mechanise the work as far as we could.
A demonstration, to which I could not go myself, was given by the Potato Marketing Board last September. Anybody who went to it would realise the interest shown by the farmers in getting machines that will do the work. The Potato Marketing Board chose one of the nicest fields for the machines to work in. It was a nice day, the soil was friable, there were hardly any stones and the hills were not very steep. In spite of that, out of a wide range of harvesting machines there were only two, so my friends who were there tell me, that were potentially suitable, even under the most perfect conditions of soil, climate, temperature dryness of the atmosphere and stonelessness of the soil.
That was an exhibition rather than a demonstration, showing that the Potato


Marketing Board is doing its best to encourage manufacturers to produce machines. It showed the interest of the farmers because of the enormous number of farmers who went there to find a machine that would work.
8.15 p.m.
Some of our farmers can now use machines, and I have seen them at work on more and more fields. The more we can do that on the land which is good, provided that it does not get too wet and the machines will work and not get clogged up, the fewer children we shall need. That will be much cheaper and more economical, provided that the machines are reasonably economic. The Board is encouraging the production of machines at an economic price. We do not want a thing costing more than £1,000 and weighing two and a half tons, but something costing about £600 which does not weigh more than one and a half tons.
We are all most keen to get rid of this Act as soon as possible, but I am not holding out hope that it can be done in the next year or two. I believe a solution is on the way. The Government and the Potato Marketing Board are doing their best. I only hope that when the Board stages its next demonstration the farm will not be so perfect and that we shall get a better idea of what the machines can do. The sooner we get a machine the happier we shall be.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord John Hope): It is rightly the duty of the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland who is in charge of agricultural affairs to come to this Box and justify the continuation of this Act. The onus must be on the Government leach time to justify it. Against that background, I say straight away that we still regard this Act, as we always have regarded it, and as hon. Gentlemen opposite did when they were in office, as something wholly undesirable in itself and as a regrettable necessity for the time being.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan), I thought that the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) moved the Amendment in very reasonable terms. I do not find anything to quarrel about in the spirit with which he addressed himself to this

problem. He perhaps a little overdid the accusation of undue optimism on the part of Ministers; I can find no evidence for that in past debates. Indeed, last year my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. N. Macpherson) who was answering a similar Amendment at this Box, said that the solution was not yet in sight.
It would be as well for me to tell the Committee what has happened since last year. I do not think hon. Members would want me to go into basic reasons that have been trotted out from this Box for so many years. It would just be repetition, but I can say one or two things which are not entirely without interest or relevance. I think it is recognised not only on both sides of the Committee, but by experts in the industry, that the only alternative to the use of children is the mechanical harvester. Definite progress has been made since last year. What we saw this year—I went myself to have a look—is considered by those who know about these things to be a very marked improvement. What was seen was better in terms of efficiency. It is not being the least bit over-optimistic to say that very definite progress has been made throughout the year.
It is true, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus said, that the conditions for the trial in Fife were absolutely ideal, but that was not entirely owing to the nature of the soil and the gentleness of the slope, but largely to the fact that there had been a few extremely fine days just before it. It was absolutely fascinating to watch those machines at work, and there is little doubt that in perfect conditions they have just about got the answer. One would hesitate to say that they had got the answer in bad conditions.

Mr. Ross: I have the strongest objection to this reference to conditions while forgetting that children working in bad conditions is something to be deplored.

Lord John Hope: Yes, it is far better that they should be able to work in good conditions, but they can get the potatoes out when the soil is very heavy and wet, as unfortunately, the mechanical harvester cannot. That is one of the awkward facts one has to face. Nevertheless, I thought I ought to dwell for these few


minutes on this question of the alternative, because it is a burning question. Distinct progress has been made. Those concerned are getting down to the problem for all they are worth. Farmers are also very keen that they should be able to dispense with child labour and get mechanical harvesters as soon as they are reasonable propositions. They are already retailable at round about the reasonable figures my hon. Friend gave and so the economics of the matter should not create any great difficulty.
Another change since last year about which I should tell the Committee is one which is to be welcomed. Billeting has been abolished; it has gone for good. There was not any this year and will not be in future. That is a change which is very much for the better.

Mr. James McInnes: Would the hon. Gentleman explain a little more about the operation of billeting? I am interested in the situation of those who have to go from Glasgow to Perthshire.

Lord John Hope: The answer is that they no longer have to and did not do so this year. There was no billeting this year, whereas there has been in the years before.
I was asked what the exemption figure was this year. The answer is 22,000. When talking about these figures we ought not to ignore that that does not mean all those 22,000 children were on the job all the time. We have not got the breakdown of the figures, but we are getting it for this year, and it will be interesting to see what one might call the "child day" figures to show how many of these children are away on the job.

Mr. Ross: Was the reduction of about 6,400 due to any improvement in mechanical devices available, or was it due to what the hon. Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan) said was a factor, the very light crop this year?

Sir J. Duncan: There was a reduction in acreage also.

Lord John Hope: It was due more to a reduction in acreage than any other factors. Nevertheless, it is a welcome figure so far as it goes.
I am well aware that a few local authorities have expressed themselves as unable to co-operate more than they are bound by statute to co-operate. One understands that perfectly well, because local authorities dislike this practice as much as anyone on either side of the Committee dislikes it. That being said, I wonder if it is asking too much to ask those authorities to look at this question again in terms of the national interest, provided we accept, as I am sure they would, that this is a regrettable necessity and there is nothing better to put in its place. If a thing is necessary in the interests of the country—my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus argued that this is necessary, and we all know it is at the moment—it seems not to be going too far to ask people to make the best of it rather than the worst of it.
I will give an example of what I mean. The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson), whose absence we regret, although, of course, we understand it, would, I am sure, have made an interesting contribution had he been able to be present. He has been very worried about pirating of child labour in Dundee. He has been in touch with the Secretary of State, who is going to see those concerned so that as far as lies in his power he can get rid of this in future. This could be stopped much more easily by the co-operation of local authorities than by anything else. They could withdraw exemption in cases where children do not report for the approved scheme. They could withdraw exemption if a child is sent on a pirate scheme, but a local authority which is not co-operating is not making efforts to find this out. It is a bad thing, and we want to stop it. We feel we can ask for co-operation on this, certainly in regard to Dundee.

Miss Margaret Herbison: The hon. Gentleman has been making a plea to local authorities for greater co-operation. When he examines the figures which have been given by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) about the number of children from junior secondary schools and the very small number from senior secondary schools, does he not think that if this scheme has to last even for another year,


a plea might be made to senior secondary schools rather than having all the children coming from junior secondary schools?

Lord John Hope: The hon. Lady has strayed a little from my field. I do not want to say that my plea tonight for co-operation excludes any other plea. I certainly would not say that, but I want to confine myself to my part of the business, which is to appeal to local authorities for co-operation, knowing that we do not like the scheme and recognising that they do not like it. We are all in this on either side of the Committee and in the local authorities. I will not detain the Committee any longer. I have done my hest to show why it is reasonable that we should renew these powers and why, at the same time, it is reasonable to ask that as long as we have to do this unpleasant job we should have cooperation from those local authorities who so far have felt that they could not co-operate.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Fraser: I suppose that I have more responsibility for this Act which we are about to continue for another year than has any other hon. Member because I was Under-Secretary of State for Scotland in the years immediately after the war. With the then Secretary of State, Mr. Joseph Westwood, we discovered that the Education (Scotland) Act, 1945, which was put on the Statute Book when Lord Rosebery was Secretary of State and the present Minister of State, Lord Strathclyde, was Under-Secretary of State, made a specific provision that no local authority would be permitted to allow an exemption from school attendance for the purpose of engaging in gainful employment. That was a decision which they took at that time with their eyes open. Many of us who are still here were in Parliament at that time and approved of that decision being taken.
The late Mr. Westwood and I learned by 1946 that if we raised the school leaving age by 1947, which we proposed to do, this provision in the 1945 Act would become effective and it would not be possible for a local education authority to grant exemption to one school child for one day to go to harvest potatoes. We had to bring in this Measure. As my hon.

Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) said, we brought it in as a temporary Measure hoping, in 1947, that in the not very distant future we should be able to manage without calling on the services of the school children.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State has been extremely fair in his presentation of the case for the continuation of the Act. He said that he believed, and he was supported by the experts in his belief, that the only way to get rid of the Act was to get a satisfactory mechanical harvester. I do not think we ought to take that view. I tried to interrupt the hon. Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan), and had I been permitted to interrupt him I should have asked him how many old-fashioned spin diggers there were still in Angus. It is a great mistake to think that there is no half-way house—nothing between the old-fashioned spin digger, with twenty school children behind, and the mechanical potato harvester which would employ no school children at all.
Those farmers who now manage without school children do not use the old spin digger. They have been using a more modern elevator digger, lifting two or three drills of potatoes at a time and leaving them behind the harvester in great heaps. Adults are then employed to gather those potatoes into barrows or carts and take them away. In many cases they can lift the potatoes with a potato fork instead of by hand.
I am not saying that if every farmer in Scotland wanted to buy one of these diggers he could do so tomorrow and I am not saying that every field in Scotland is appropriate for using one of these diggers. Nor am I saying that if every farmer had these diggers he would easily get sufficient adult labour to do all the harvesting. What I am saying—and I have no doubt at all that I am fully justified in saying it—is that there are far too many farmers in Scotland who are not as anxious about making an improvement in the present position as the hon. Member for South Angus would have us believe. There are many who are anxious not to use children and to get them away from the farms, but there are too many who are not anxious, otherwise we should have more of these modern diggers and not so many of the old spin diggers.
By all means let us give every possible encouragement to the engineers to produce a mechanical harvester which will lift potatoes in all conditions. For about ten years we have had harvesters which will lift potatoes in ideal conditions.
I used to stand at the Dispatch Box and say that I had seen the harvester gathering in the potatoes in ideal conditions. But it is a good many years since I last stood at that Box. It is not for me to blame the engineers for not producing a more successful harvester, but it is a good many years now since we have had the harvester which would lift in ideal conditions. If we can see that it will be difficult to produce one which will lift in any conditions, however, it seems to me that we ought to be looking for a second best—not something which involves a wholly mechanised operation but one which is more mechanised than the old spin digger, employing adult labour at a fair wage.
In this connection I would say that although the wages paid to the children may look to some to be high, nevertheless the wages paid to the adult workers in this industry are about the lowest of all. I should have thought that as this is an operation that has to be carried on almost entirely in the month of October in Scotland—it may sometimes be possible in the last week in September and the first week in November—it is necessary to pay the adult workers higher wages than they could get elsewhere in Scotland. They will have to be paid the average wage of the industrial worker. What they get is £7, as against the average industrial worker's £10. They cannot be obtained at that rate, so they will have to be paid extra if they are to take over from the children.

Lord John Hope: The hon. Member has rather suggested that there has not been any advance in these machines, as used in ideal conditions, since he last spoke from this Dispatch Box—

Mr. Fraser: indicated dissent.

Lord John Hope: —but, in fact, there has been a tremendous advance. As I understand it, far fewer potatoes are cut than was the case even a few years ago.

Mr. Fraser: I was not suggesting that there had not been an advance. I thought I said that it was not for me to criticise

the engineers who had been working on this task. What I was doing was quarrelling with the hon. Gentleman for saying that it will always be necessary to have this system until we have a mechanical harvester which will pick the potatoes in all conditions. That is a policy of despair, and I do not subscribe to it.
I am delighted that billeting has gone. We do not like to see these children going from their homes and working in the potato fields quite early in the morning. I have seen some of these lads leaving Dundee and other cities to work in the potato fields. I have seen the sort of thing described by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) in his representations to the Secretary of State. There is no doubt that sending children from large cities like Glasgow to places as far as Perthshire, and even Ross-shire, was the worst aspect of the scheme.
The children seemed reasonably happy. They were big and strong youngsters. In fact, I had to look up to some of them. There are a good many hefty lads of fourteen and fifteen years of age nowadays. But there were a good many who were not really suited to this kind of work and who should not have been separated from their parents. I sincerely hope that the Joint Under-Secretary is right when he says that the billeting system will not be renewed in future.
Questions have been asked about the part played by the senior secondary schools. In the earlier years of the operation of the scheme under the Act senior secondary schools played quite a worthy part. I went out of my way to canvass the idea that senior secondary school children should play an important part, together with the juniors, and I could name some very well known senior schools which were making a good contribution to the scheme. But one gets the impression that as the years go by fewer and fewer secondary school children are playing their part. If that is not the case it would be better to have figures to disprove the allegation.
I know full well that the parents of junior secondary children will in those cases be more willing that their children should harvest potatoes than the parents of senior secondary children. I have no doubt that school teachers, headmasters, and the like, will in many cases


be more disposed to junior secondary children doing this work than to senior secondary children. But from many points of view it is more desirable that the senior secondary children rather than the junior secondary children should do this work because the junior secondary children are about to finish their education. They are getting away from school at the earliest possible moment whereas the senior secondary children will be at school much longer—for two or three years—after they are beyond the scope of this Measure.
If we could be given any figures, I am sure that we would be pleased to have them, and if they show that the proportion of senior secondary children participating in the scheme has not declined it would be a part answer to many of the allegations that have been made by education authorities in Scotland about the unfairness of this scheme.
The Joint Under-Secretary, in dealing with the matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East with the Secretary of State, said that it would be easier to control or to deal with pirate schemes if the local authorities would co-operate. I think that this is probably too big a job for the local authorities. After all, what are pirate schemes? It is not the farmers but the potato merchants who lift the potatoes on many farms. They go into Dundee and the other cities and they recruit and take out children who have been exempted by an order made under the Act. I am not complaining about the order.
It was I who had to put this provision in the Act, and I did so at the request of education authorities who said that they did not want responsibility. They thought that I should take the responsibility for that. That is why the provision is in the Act. When the children have been granted exemption, the potato merchants hire them, take them into the fields and ignore the provisions. I am not saying that all potato merchants do this. I imagine that most potato merchants observe the provisions of the Regulations, but there are those who do not and who do not take the children to the fields in a covered vehicle which gives the children protection, but drive them in open lorries.
The Regulations also say that children should have a hot meal in the middle of the

day. Some of the potato merchants do not give them a hot meal in the middle of the day, and if they give them a cup of tea they describe that as a hot meal. That is not a hot meal. If people who engage children are not doing that, then the Joint Under-Secretary will agree that it is not the responsibility of the local authority to pull them up for it. It is the responsibility of the Department of the Minister of Education or of the Department of the Minister of Agriculture. The Ministers, of course, are responsible in this respect for what the Departments do.
I would say without any hesitation that we should blacklist the person who is participating in this scheme, is using the children who have been granted school exemption and who does not comply with the Regulations, but takes the children out in open lorries, with their legs dangling over the side, driving along country roads, being twisted round curves and subject to danger. That sort of person, who fails to give them a hot meal in the middle of the day or does no more than give them a cup or can of tea, should at once be blacklisted and ought not again be able to employ any children who come under the scheme. It may be that it is not easy to catch up with these people. When one catches up with them they have already committed the offence once or twice.

8.45 p.m.

Lord John Hope: I must intervene. Surely it cannot be right to say that the Government must bear the responsibility for children working under schemes which the Government have not authorised. The point of authorising a Government scheme is to indicate that the scheme is all right. If children get themselves taken out on a different scheme, that is not the Government's fault. Bearing in mind that what matters most is the children's own welfare, the local authority could stop this sort of thing by withdrawing exemptions. It is not right to blame the Government.

Mr. Fraser: But the education authority does not grant the exemptions. It plays the part of postman in this matter. It is the clerical officer, not the executive. It does not take the decision. It is the Secretary of State who says to the education authority, "You shall examine X number of children." The education


authority decides which of the children who apply will be granted exemption up to the number required, and it does the medical examinations.

Lord John Hope: In the authorised scheme.

Mr. Fraser: Yes, but if the Secretary of State has granted exemptions I hope it is not going to be suggested that the children are authorised to get an exemption just to work for Farmer Smith, for example, and then go straight back to school—because they do not do that.

Sir James Henderson-Stewart: I think we are confusing two things, are we not? The children who work under he Department of Agriculture scheme are the responsibility of the Department. But there are a great many children—I do not know whether it is a half or a third—who work in their holidays, not under any scheme at all, and I do not think the law says that the Department is responsible for them. Is that not so?

Mr. Fraser: I wonder where those children come from. The Dundee children do not get potato holidays in October.

Sir J. Henderson-Stewart: But arrangements are made. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that in different parts of Scotland there are potato holidays.

Mr. Fraser: Yes, but I am saying that there are those pirate schemes. The children are exempted from school on the direction of the Secretary of State, but they do not all work all the time on those jobs under the supervision of inspectors employed by the Secretary of State. That supervision has always been much less for the children who live at home than for the children who are billeted. The one advantage about the billeting of children was that they were supervised all the time, whereas the others are not. I have seen this sort of thing in Lanarkshire and I remember taking action myself to blacklist one of my own constituents who had taken children out to pick potatoes without fulfilling the conditions of the Regulations.
All I say is that we in Parliament have approved Regulations which have been put before us by the Secretary of State. We are most unwilling that children

should continue to do this job any longer than necessary, but for so long as we permit this thing to be done we are obliged to ensure that the children are given whatever protection we have written into the Regulations. I merely ask the Under-Secretary to ensure that they will get that protection in future.
The other point I wish to raise concerns the possibility of getting some of those machines that are somewhere between the old spin digger and the new mechanical harvester which we all appreciate has not been so perfected that it can do the job fully. If we can get more people to take the elevator diggers and employ adult labour, as they can in many places, it would reduce the number of children employed and I am sure we all wish that to be done as soon as possible.

Mr. George Lawson: I am interested in the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) about using more adult labour. In paragraph 23 of the Rose Report, this matter of adult labour and the possibility of obtaining further adult labour seems to be dealt with conclusively. It gives the figure of unemployed at October, 1955, as 45,779. It breaks down the figure of unemployed into different categories, telling us that many were registered disabled persons, that many were married women whose circumstances greatly limited their mobility, that some were short-term unemployed in the process of moving from job to job. Eventually it reaches the conclusion that, out of the 45,000, between 3,000 and 4,000 were available, so that we can in fact wipe out the possibility of obtaining adult workers and, on that basis, unless a machine can be found, we must continue to use child labour.

Mr. Fraser: I have always taken the view, and I still do, that the adult labour should not be obtained from the ranks of the unemployed but from the ranks of the otherwise employed. Many people employed by the local authorities and the like, perfectly fit young men, might be attracted from local authority work temporarily, during October, to harvest potatoes. But that could be possible only on the basis of offering more wages for harvesting potatoes than they would receive in their normal jobs.

Mr. Lawson: I would subscribe to the view propounded by my hon. Friend, and I had the impression that I was supporting his contention against the use of unemployed, in this sense; I agree that the job must be made more attractive.
The sole point I want to make is that it is not enough to look at the unemployed in Scotland, reduced in the way I have described, and say that this exhausts the resources and, therefore, children must be used. There is the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, but there is the further point that we must bear in mind the proportion of the total population employed. We must not take it for granted that it is only the unemployed or registered unemployed who are, in any circumstances, available for work.
We must appreciate that in Scotland, as I think my hon. Friends will agree, because of the lack of job opportunities as compared with England and Wales—particularly as compared with the Midlands and the London area, though the situation may well be different in Wales—the proportion of the total population employed or available for work is substantially lower in Scotland than in the Birmingham region, the London region or, in fact, in the English and Welsh regions taking the two together.
A Question recently put to the Minister of Labour brought the reply that Scotland compared with England and Wales taken together had a working population, expressed as a percentage, which was 2 per cent. less than the English and Welsh working population. Putting it the other way, the total of the English and Welsh population employed or available for work was 2 per cent. greater than the proportion for Scotland. Two per cent. might seem very small, but applied to 5 million people it produces a substantial number, 100,000 I think.
Thus, if the proportion of the Scottish population engaged at work or available for work were as high as the English-Welsh one, there would be very many more than 45,000 unemployed; or, if it is put the other way, if the job can be made sufficiently attractive—that is the point—for adult workers, there are adult workers in Scotland available for the job. There are 100,000 of them on the basis of the proportion in England and Wales. The proportion would be much higher if we were confining ourselves to

a comparison with the Midlands or with London. Certainly, on the basis of the Scottish and the English-Welsh proportions, there are 100,000 more people available for work or who could be induced to make themselves available for work if the job could be made sufficiently attractive.
I suggest that instead of adopting the hopeless attitude that until the machines have been perfected we can do nothing except continue to make child labour available, we should be telling the farmers to find adult workers. I am confident that if they were presented with the alternative either of adult workers or no workers, they would quickly get the adult workers.
The Department might make this kind of inquiry. It could look over the farms as a whole and find out which farms can do these jobs without child labour and whether there are any real material differences between the farms that can get on without child labour and those which seem to find it necessary to call in the child labour. If on examination it is found that a good many farms can manage without child labour, possibly because of the better organisation of available labour and because of better incentives and better payments, we should clamp down and say that no more child labour will be made available in the school periods. On this basis, I certainly support what my hon. Friends have said.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Willis: I beg to move, in page 3, to leave out lines 21 and 22.
The Amendment relates to the provision in the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1951, which made it obligatory for local authorities to seek the approval of the appropriate Minister for non-grantaided expenditure. We think once again, as we did last year, that the time has come when this rather pinpricking procedure might be abolished. In view, however, of the rather hopeless state into which the Government have managed to get our economy. I do not entertain much hope of success; but that is due not so much to the unworthiness of the argument as to the incompetence of the Government.
As I understand it, the Amendment concerns something like one-twentieth of the capital expenditure incurred by local


authorities—at least that is my calculation according to the figures given by the Joint Under-Secretary in last year's debate. The hon. Gentleman said that the non-grant-aid capital expenditure covered about one-fifth of the total capital expenditure of local authorities in Scotland. He then proceeded to give the figures for the amount that was stopped as a result of this procedure and it came to roughly 5 per cent.: £3 million stopped, £10 million approved. That is roughly one-quarter, and one-quarter of one-fifth gives us the proportion of one-twentieth of the total capital expenditure. Therefore, the amount that we are considering is not considerable in the context of the total of local government capital expenditure in Scotland.
9.0 p.m.
The first argument that I expect the Joint Under-Secretary will trot out tonight is that this procedure obtains in England and Wales and, therefore, that there is no reason why it should not apply also to Scotland. When the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1947, was passed it was not thought necessary to apply this to Scotland. That was very wise. I certainly do not subscribe to the doctrine that because a thing is desirable in England it is necessarily desirable in Scotland, and on this provision my view is that the Scottish local authorities probably require it much less than the English because Scottish local authorities are certainly not so spendthrift as English local authorities. I have learned from my experience on the Select Committee on Estimates that English Departments are very much less careful than the Scottish Departments. That is in accordance with the Scottish character. So I hope we shall not hear the argument about England and Wales. What we are considering is Scotland.
I want the hon. Gentleman to consider the difficulties and the safeguards there already are. In the first place, local authorities are up against a Bank Rate of 7 per cent. How many local authorities are going to borrow money for the kind of work which is not State aided, not carrying a grant, at a rate of 7 per cent? Not many would do it. Nobody will ever convince me that any local authority in Scotland would do it without a very good cause indeed.
Secondly, it is not as easy to borrow money as it used to be. Local Government has had a number of obstacles put in its way. It has first to try the money market, and if it is not successful there it goes to the Public Works Loan Board, and the Board is not under any obligation to lend the whole of the sum sought, but only a bit of it. In view of the increased difficulties and the increased Bank Rate, no local authority will be spendthrift or undertake this procedure. It would help us, of course, if we could have the figures for this year to see how they compare with last year's. Have they been greater or have they been less for the actual expenditure under this heading?
I would point out also that there is the safeguard of the two-thirds majority. If our proposal were accepted that safeguard of the two-thirds majority would be effective again. In most local councils it is no easy thing to get a two-thirds majority. My experience of organisations is that it is difficult to get a majority of two-thirds and it certainly would be in most of the local authorities in Scotland.
The introduction of the block grant scheme, while not directly affecting this, will exert an indirect pressure on local authorities and cause them to tend to look at this kind of expenditure rather more carefully until they can see how the block grant scheme will work out. While not directly affecting them it will have an indirect influence, acting as a brake on the local authorities.
Then there is the integrity of the council itself. When the Bill of 1951 was going through to amend the 1947 Act a number of hon. Members on the other side had a great deal to say about giving the local authorities greater freedom. Indeed, we hear a good deal about that from them even now, and the Government are very enthusiastic over their Bill to promote a new block grant system, saying that it will give the local authorities greater freedom, though I think the Government are deceiving themselves if they think that they are really giving them greater freedom.
Here now is a way in which the Government can help if they are really sincere in saying they wish to give the local authorities greater freedom over their own affairs. This measure of freedom


would not be a very large one. The proportion of the expenditure affected is one-fifth, and according to the last figures the Government were stopping a quarter of the one-fifth. However, here is one way in which the Government could set the local authorities a little freer. Instead of only saying in speeches in the country and in this Chamber that they trust the local authorities, and believe they are doing a good job, and that they wish to encourage them, they could in practice show their trust, show their belief in their good work, and encourage them by giving them the responsibility to make their own decisions over expenditure without continually having to come to Ministers for their approval.
There are several reasons, which I have not tried to classify in order of merit, which altogether amount to a very good case for giving local authorities the right themselves to undertake this capital expenditure without seeking the permission of the Minister. These reasons are supported by the fact that we want to encourage and strengthen local authorities. That is extremely important at the present time. I hope that the Minister will be rather more favourably disposed this time. I hope that I shall have a surprise at the end of the debate and that he will say, "We have great pleasure in accepting the Amendment as a token of our sincere desire to strengthen local authority government in Scotland."

Mr. J. McInnes: I intervene for a few minutes only because we have already exceeded our time schedule. I will not go into the history of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1951. I am sure that the Committee appreciates that the provision which we are discussing has a long history. It has been in force for almost 17 years. It was first put into effect in Defence Regulations. It was amended in 1951 to exclude the two-thirds majority to which my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) has referred, and today it is confined to this temporary basis.
It is important to remind the Committee that this provision does not concern itself with capital expenditure that is grant-aided. It is confined to capital expenditure which is not grant-aided. Grant-aided capital expenditure must find the approval of the Secretary

of State for Scotland. That procedure is not needed in the case of non-grant-aided capital expenditure, except as provided for in this enactment. In other words, the enactment provides that local authorities must obtain the consent of the Secretary of State before they can borrow money for non-grant-aided capital expenditure.
There is a vast difference between grant-aided capital expenditure and non grant-aided capital expenditure. For example, grant-aided capital expenditure necessarily involves a considerable amount of Government money. It is only natural, therefore, that the Secretary of State for Scotland should exercise a degree of control over such capital expenditure. But non-grant-aided capital expenditure, to which the Act refers, does not contain any element of Governmental money. In essence, what the Government are doing is to exercise control over local authorities in borrowing money that does not cost the Government a single penny. I know that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland may say to me, "What about the element of Exchequer equalisation grant?" I shall be glad if he will not ask that question, because it is recognised now that that element is infinitesimal in the issues which we are now discussing and, therefore, should not be taken into consideration at all.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East pointed out that the total capital expenditure, working on the figures which the Joint Under-Secretary provided in a similar debate last year, is approximately £80 million, grant-aided and non-grant-aided. Of that £80 million, £60 million was granted in respect of grant-aided expenditure, and of the balance the local authorities applied fur borrowing powers in respect of £20 million the Secretary of State authorised approximately £16 million and refused £4 million. So what, in essence, we are discussing tonight is the mean, despicable, niggardly attitude of the Government in wanting to exercise control of 5 per cent. of the total capital investment of local authorities in Scotland.
Why do the Government persist in desiring to exercise control over only 5 per cent. of the total capital expenditure throughout Scotland? Is it because they feel that local authorities are extravagant?


Is it because they feel that local authorities are likely to embark on foolish or needless projects? If the hon. Gentleman feels that way about it, I think he will find that there is a terrific deterrent in the 7 per cent. Bank Rate.
Indeed, rather than embark on foolish projects, what are the projects that would come under this enactment? Public libraries and markets, houses for old people, and things of that kind? No local authority would embark needlessly on such projects but, because of the 7 per cent. Bank Rate, there is even less opportunity for them to do so. Indeed, there are local authorities in Scotland who have decided not to build any houses because of the effect of the 7 per cent. Bank Rate.
If time permitted I could have quoted about twenty different speeches from hon. Gentlemen opposite about giving the local authorities the maximum freedom. They say that Conservative policy is so designed as to give local government the maximum liberty and freedom, the maximum opportunity to local authorities to run their own affairs. Indeed, when the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Joint Under-Secretary were speaking on the introduction of the White Paper dealing with local government finance, the right hon. Gentleman said that the effect of the financial proposals—
…we genuinely believe will be to give to local authorities not only greater freedom but, hope an even greater sense of responsibility…
In winding up that debate the Joint Under-Secretary said:
Increasingly local authorities have been in danger of becoming no more than local offices of central Government."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th July, 1957; Vol. 400, c. 1087 and 1133.]
Does the hon. Gentleman genuinely believe that, or is it the nebulous parrot cry that typifies a good deal of the stuff that comes from the benches opposite. Why does he not practise what he preaches? Here is a small, mean, despicable Measure that really means nothing and local authorities desire to get rid of it. The County Councils Association has said to the Government, "Get rid of this as quickly as you possibly can." Glasgow Town Council sent the hon. Gentleman a letter the other day asking him to get rid of this Act.
That is the general feeling of local authorities, so if the Government really desire, as they say so frequently, to give the maximum liberty and freedom to

local government, here is a glorious opportunity to put their teaching into practice. I hope that we shall tonight find the Joint Under-Secretary indicating that he has decided that he will not proceed with this Measure.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. T. Fraser: The people of Scotland, and, in particular, those concerned with Scottish local government, will judge by the Joint Under-Secretary's reply the sincerity with which he and his right hon. Friend proclaimed that the purpose of the general grant was to give local authorities more freedom. The hon. Gentleman has been put to the test. We understand from the Gracious Speech that later this Session he will introduce a Measure to give us this general grant in place of the percentage grant. It is said that that is for the purpose of giving local authorities more power over their own affairs. We have come to his assistance. He need not draft a Bill to give them that power. All he has to do is to accept the Amendment.
Lest anyone should think from what my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) has said that the projects are in the main frivolous, I will mention the latest one which has been brought to my attention. Hamilton Town Council has discovered that it is committing an offence under the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act, 1951, by discharging untreated effluent from the sewage works into the Clyde. It has been told by the Scottish Office that it cannot obtain consent to borrow money to build plant to enable it not to continue committing the offence. However, the Scottish Office made a very helpful suggestion, stating that it would give the Town Council borrowing powers to buy a suction tanker to enable it to take the untreated sludge from the sewage works to the town dump. The Town Council did not think that funny and is not taking the advice.
I mention this instance to show that there are works of great importance which local authorities want to carry out but they are prevented from doing so by the provision with which we are dealing. If the Joint Under-Secretary does not make a concession, local authorities will regard it as utter hypocrisy to say that the purpose of a general grant is to give them more control over their own affairs.

Mr. J. N. Browne: I am very grateful—

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;

House counted, and 40 Members being present—

Mr. Browne: I do not think that many of the hon. Members who have just entered the Chamber have come to hear me wind up this very important debate.
I am grateful to the hon. Members for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) and Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) for the moderate way in which they put their case. What has been said about the position of local authorities is substantially correct. I think it fair to say that the local authorities do not like this Measure, but they understand the need for it. Having said that, I must say that the Government are very much indebted to local authorities for their statesmanlike appreciation of the position and for their restraint. The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) twitted me—

Mr. Thomas Steele: Is not it true that when he replied to the debate last year the Minister said that the Couny Councils Association had asked him to dispense with this Regulation?

Mr. Browne: That has already been said and we have not denied it.
The hon. Member for Hamilton twitted me and said that if we did not accept the Amendment we should be making a mockery of the proposals which my right hon. Friend has suggested. He said that local authorities would not then have more power over their own affairs. Capital works in this day and age are not the concern of the local authority only. They have a broader national implication. Local authorities have shown in this matter, as in so many others, how much they understand the part which they can and do play in helping the national economy.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East knows better than I do that the conflict between national and local interests is sometimes very great. We know that before one criticises a local authority for making demands which seem contrary to the national interest, one must appreciate that the man on the spot is very often

subject to very heavy pressure, pressure from local interests which cannot always be expected to appreciate their own needs in the wider perspective of the national interest. That is the answer to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East who says that local authorities should have more freedom.
One cannot always expect the small local authority—or, sometimes, even the big one—under local pressure and urgent need in the narrow perspective to say that, although it would like something, in the national interest it should not ask for it.

Mr. T. Fraser: If it is so much against the national interest for Hamilton Town Council to build a sewage plant, how can it be in the national interest for someone in Hamilton to build a dance hall or a petrol station?

Mr. Browne: The capital expenditure of local authorities is so much larger and it is in the national interest that it should be controlled. There are the Capital Issues Committee and many other similar devices for dealing with dance halls.

Mr. Fraser: Not a dance hall in Hamilton.

Mr. Browne: If a man wants to spend his own money. The expenditure is not as great.
Hon. Members are trying to convince themselves that local authorities are taking the same attitude which they have adopted. I make no complaint about that, but in fact local authorities have shown an increasing co-operation with the national effort and I will give figures which will bear out that statement. Whatever hon. Members may say, local authorities are fully aware of the position and are co-operating.
The number of applications approved has dropped from 1,440 to 1,338, 7 per cent.; the value of the number of applications dropped from about £10 million to about £9 million, a saving of 8 per cent.; even more significantly, the number of applications rejected has dropped from 230 to 107, about 54 per cent.—

Mr. Willis: This is the best argument our side has had.

Mr. Browne: —and the value of the applications rejected has fallen from


£3,790,000 to £1,657,000, a drop of 56 per cent. That shows quite clearly that this year local authorities are showing greater restraint than last year and are limiting their requests to essential capital works which my right hon. Friend has been able to approve.

Mr. Fraser: Perhaps those figures merely reflect the fact that the local authorities have not been able to get the money.

Mr. Browne: No. They have asked for less and have been granted a greater proportion of what they have asked for.

Mr. Willis: Do not those figures provide the best argument that we have had up to the present in support of our contention that the local authorities ought to be trusted? It might be that some of the factors which I mentioned in my speech have contributed to this result. Interest rates have. The fact is that the result is being achieved.

Mr. Browne: I will go as far with the hon. Gentleman as to say that the local authorities are showing that they are worthy of the confidence which the Government place in them. We do not think that this matter can be left entirely to the local authorities. It is very significant that the local authorities asked for less and that a higher proportion of their requests has been granted. The figures fully justify the need for the Measure and the sincere vote of thanks which I have just paid to all local authorities for their understanding and co-operation. Hon. Members opposite know just as well as I do that control by the Government is necessary to ensure that all the resources available are used to the best advantage in the national interest.

Mr. Fraser: If the Government controlled private enterprise in the same way as they control the local authorities we would agree.

Mr. Browne: A great deal of private enterprise is controlled by the Capital Issues Committee. There is a great deal of control by high interest rates and the action of the banks. I agree with the hon. Member that some sections are free from control. They are the people who are spending their own money. What is the alternative? Regiments of civil servants

and snoopers, goods under the counter and tons and tons of paper. I venture to suggest that the cost to the nation in terms of manpower and of frustration would be greater than the amount of any slight saving on things built by private enterprise many of which would be approved in any case.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Central, thought that non-grant-aided borrowing for capital expenditure, having no element of the taxpayers' money, should be free from control. I have said that control of all capital works is essential in the national interest.
This is the third time I have wound up a debate such as this. As each year goes by I become more thoroughly convinced that this is a workable, well-understood and necessary Measure. I hope that hon. Members opposite, who are supporters of Government control and who put this Measure on the Statute Book in its present form, will not divide against it.

Amendment negatived.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this Schedule be the Schedule to the Bill.

Mr. A. Blenkinsop: This is the only opportunity of raising a very short point about the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, 1946, which appears in Part II of the Schedule. As I remember it, some of my hon. Friends were attacked rather bitterly by hon. Members opposite for putting down an Amendment in respect of this provision last year because we wanted to retain the provision and used that device in order to discuss the matter.
On this occasion we have put down no such Amendment, but we wish to have information from the Minister about this very important Measure. The rent tribunals have been in danger recently of destruction altogether. Some of their responsibilities have been taken away from them. Applications under the Act have kept up in numbers, and in 1956, so far as I can see from the Annual Report of the Ministry, there were rather more applications to the tribunals than there were the year before. In view of that, one wants to know what the intentions of the Ministry are in regard to the continuance of these tribunals and whether it has in mind any extension of


their provision in view of the possibilities of increased need arising from the operation of the Rent Act.
9.30 p.m.
There is no doubt that many people will be dispossessed under the Rent Act and may be forced into furnished accommodation, at least temporarily, and may have to face very high rent charges. It is only right that there should be full provision to meet their needs. Already cases are arising and coming before the rent tribunals. I wonder whether the Minister can say whether the Government have plans for the reinstitution of some of the tribunals which were closed down some time ago, or at least to make preliminary preparations in case that should be necessary.
I do not want to delay the Committee because I know that there are other matters coming forward this evening, but I know the staff of the tribunals have been very much concerned about their future and the security of their work and also because of what they feel to be the rather unfair treatment to which they have been subjected in regard to pay and conditions. I am told that some discussion has been going on between the staff and the Ministry for a year and a half or more in regard to their pay position and the way in which their pay should or should not be related to equivalent Civil Service grades. Although I gather that the latest position is that they have accepted an offer of the Ministry made in September this year, that has not yet been paid.
These are anxieties which I think it highly desirable to be cleared up. After all, they are not a very big staff. If there is any way of bringing them within one of the main negotiating bodies, or of having them treated as equivalent to certain grades in the Civil Service so that these problems will not arise again, that will give great satisfaction.
I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will recognise that these bodies are giving valuable service and providing important protection not only in the way they serve the public in the cases which go for hearing, but also because they provide valuable information for many people who call for advice and help. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to give us some information about

their future development and will also say a word about the salaried position of the staff.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. J. R. Bevins): I must say a few words in reply to the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop). I am obliged to him for what he has said.
Under the provisions we have been discussing this afternoon the rent tribunals will continue in operation until March, 1959. As the hon. Member knows, the work with which the tribunals are now dealing is more limited in scope than it was before the passing of the Rent Act. For all practical purposes they are concerned with furnished lettings with a rateable value of not more than £40 in London and more than £30 in the rest of the country.
The work of the rent tribunals has diminished. They have been dealing with a smaller number of cases in 1957 than in 1956. That is due to the general fall in the number of applications which have been made to the rent tribunals. There has even been a decline in the number of cases in respect of furnished lettings during the third quarter of this year as compared with the corresponding quarter of 1956. Nobody is in a position to be dogmatic about it, but it is conceivable, as the hon. Member said, that there will be an increase in the number of these cases as a result of recent legislation.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Does the hon. Member know that in the North-East, in the Newcastle tribunal area, so I am told, the numbers are being maintained, and, if anything, have been slightly higher?

Mr. Bevins: That may be the case in the North-East; I am not in a position to contradict what the hon. Member said. It is, however, true of the country as a whole that the tendency is for these applications to decline in number. Because that has been happening, the Government have been applying their minds to the possibility of reducing the number of rent tribunals without, of course, putting applicants to undue inconvenience in having their cases heard. My right hon. Friend is at the moment in the process of trying to bring about a number of amalgamations, which will not


inconvenience applicants because these tribunals go to the place of the applicant rather than expect him to go to the tribunal wherever it is based.
Dealing with the other question which the hon. Member asked, I am afraid that I am not in a position at the moment to give him a definite answer about remuneration, but I am certainly prepared to look at the matter.

Question put and agreed to.

Schedule agreed to.

Preamble agreed to.

Bill reported, without Amendment; read the Third time and passed.

PUBLIC WORKS LOANS BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

9.38 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. J. Enoch Powell): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill is in the nature of a hardy perennial, for Parliament has habitually so drawn the powers of advancing money to the Public Works Loan Board that they require to be renewed at fairly frequent intervals and that consequently the House has regular opportunities of reviewing the Board's operations.
The last Act, which received the Royal Assent on 2nd August, 1956, provided for a limit of £300 million on sums which might be advanced for the purposes of these loans. At the present rate at which these are being issued, that limit would be reached about July of next year. It is clear that at some time during the present Session a new Public Works Loans Bill would be necessary, and although up to date only a little over £180 million of the present £300 million has been issued, it is convenient that the Bill should be taken now. I know the House appreciates that when each successive Public Works Loans Act receives the Royal Assent, it cancels the fag end, as it were, of the previous power to lend.
The present Bill contains the same limits as were written into its predecessor, namely the limit of £300 million upon advances during the period and the limit of £400 million upon the total of advances and commitments. Not only are the limits unchanged: the policy under which the Board is operating has undergone no alteration since the last Act was passed. The treatment of applications by the Board and the principles which govern the fixing of the rate of interest by the Treasury remain as they were laid down by my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal on 26th October, 1955.
In moving the Second Reading of the Bill, it is customary to give the House the breakdown of the total loans since the last Act by the purposes to which they have been devoted. I can cover the period only from 2nd August, 1956, to 8th November last. Up to the latter date loans for housing have amounted to £135 million; for education £9½ million; for


public health £13·2 million; for the redemption of debt £2·2 million and for other purposes, notably transport, water, and land drainage, £18·9 million. These total aproximately £179 million though, as I mentioned a little earlier, advances have gone rather beyond that point in the subsequent week or two.
Of this total, the proportion which has been lent to Scottish local authorities is £15·4 million. I have looked at the Scottish proportion over previous years and I find that the proportion for the last complete financial year is roughly in line with the average over the previous period of 8 or 10 years, so I think that it can be taken broadly as a normal figure.
There is a figure in the Financial Statement presented with the Budget, below the line, for the Local Loans Fund. That figure, in last April's statement, was fixed at £100 million though, since the Board is able to dispose for this purpose also of the sums it receives back by way of repayment, that figure doe not correspond to the total advances which it is anticipated the Board will make during the financial year. However, the House may be interested to know that the rate of loans to local authorities is so far running almost exactly to the form which was assumed as a basis for the Budget figure of £100 million.
Since the change of policy in October, 1955, only a minority of local authority capital investment has been financed by the Board. The latest estimated figures which I can obtain far local authority borrowing on capital account are for the financial year 1956–57, though I must emphasise that these are still provisional figures and subject to a certain amount of correction later on. They show a total of £564 million borrowed for capital purposes by the local authorities of Great Britain. Of that, £121 million, or between one-quarter and one-fifth, was advanced by the Board; about £34 million was found by local authorities from their own internal resources; £63 million was raised by the issue of stock on the market, and the residuum—the lion's share—of £346 million was represented by mortgages and other forms of market borrowing.
So the proportionate share which the Board bears in the total financing of local authority capital investment is at present

running at a level of about one quarter or one fifth, and the vast majority required for that purpose is raised by local authorities on the market. Local authority capital investment itself has continued at a high rate; indeed, in real terms, it is running today at a level higher than, for example, in any year while the party opposite was in office. But the transfer of the main burden of financing local authority capital investment from the Public Works Loan Board to the market has been undoubtedly a very important element in the measures which the Government have taken to counter inflation.
There are two further points I should like to make. Clauses 3 and 4 contain provisions for writing off—

Mr. Harold Davies: Before the Minister leaves that point, while he is giving the House these figures, will he state the rates of interest which the Public Works Loan Board has charged during this period? I am quoting from the Minister's own Report. Since those figures of advances from the Board were given, the drop in 1955–56 of from nearly £312 million to £121 million has had a disastrous effect on the finances of some local authorities. Since this is almost a non-political discussion, I regret the Minister's assertion that the rate of investment is much higher than when the Labour Party was in power. The truth is that costs have risen so much that investment is only about the same level as when we were in power.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Powell: I am sorry that I have caused the hon. Member distress, but my statement referred to capital investment in real terms and, therefore, took account of any alteration in the value of money. I emphasise that the rates of interest on loans by the Public Works Loan Board under the policy since 1955 have been such that, from the local authority's point of view, there is virtually no financial difference, whether it borrows from the Board or on the market. So that the fall in proportion financed by the Public Works Loan Board has not imposed any financial difficulty upon local authorities.
I was about to refer to Clauses 3 and 4, which provide for the writing off of irrecoverable debts. This is a phenomenon


which occasionally crops up in Public Works Loans Bills. It has been in five Bills since the war, and the last of its kind was in 1952. The House will find the reasons why it is proposed to treat the three debts concerned as irrecoverable set out in the customary detail in the explanatory memorandum to the Bill.
The last thing I wish to say is this. I am following precedent, but none the less I sincerely wish to draw attention to the services which are performed by the Board, which, as the House knows, is a voluntary and honorary body. The decline in Lending operations has, of course, been accompanied by a reduction in staff. It has fallen from 72 at the end of the financial year 1955–56 to 59, but the reduced scope of the Board's operations has not meant that the public service performed both by the members of the Board and by the employees has been less valuable or of less importance to local government.

9.49 p.m.

Mr. G. Lindgren: The Financial Secretary has said that the Bill is not required until July of next year. I therefore make the protest that it is wrong that at this time of night we should be expected to deal in a short time with a Bill of such vital importance to local authorities and to local authority finance. It would have been far better if the Government had shown their liking for local government and dealt with this Measure in the normal way.
I do not claim to be an expert on finance, and I therefore propose to deal with the Bill on the basis of how it will affect local government. The first question that I should like to put to the Financial Secretary is, what is the policy of the Public Works Loan Board in using this £300 million odd that we are now asked to make available to it? The record of the Board during the lifetime of this Government, in spite of what the Financial Secretary has said, does not inspire very much confidence. One of the important factors in the rate poundage of a rate levied by a local authority is the interest that is charged to the local authority on capital expenditure.
If we look at the rates of interest charged—my hon. Friend the Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) referred to them in his intervention just now—the

record of this Government is something shocking. In November, 1951, it went up to 3¼ per cent. In February, 1952, it was 4¼ per cent.; October, 1953, 4 per cent.; June, 1954, 3¾per cent.; March, 1955, 4 per cent.; July, 1955, 4¼ per cent.; August, 1955, 4½ per cent.; January, 1956, 5¼ per cent.; March, 1956, 5½ per cent.; October, 1956, 5¾ per cent.; February, 1957, 5½ per cent.; July, 1957, 5¾ per cent.; September, 1957, 6¾ per cent.—fourteen changes in less than six years of Tory Government.
What a record of instability. What a nightmare it has been for members and officials of local authorities. How can a local authority budget? How can a local authority project its future commitments with fluctuations in interest charges such as we have had from this Government? A local authority that has levied a rate on 1st April has been out of date by the time it has collected the rate.
Many local authorities have had to find thousands upon thousands of pounds not for work done, not for any additional service, but just for additional interest charges placed upon the local authority after the time it has made its estimates. How the local authorities look back to the happy days of a Labour Government. Ask a financial officer of any local authority, in Scotland or in England, whether he would not rather have the golden days of stability of the Labour Government in the years between 1945 and 1951—six years when interest charges were at 2½ per cent. and when there was only one change in the whole of those six years, to 3 per cent. in November, 1948.
We have a Prime Minister who has talked about a plateau of stability. The only time there has been a plateau of stability in interest charges was under a Labour Government. Under this Government we have had insecurity and fluctuation, when people have not known from day to day where they have been.
The Financial Secretary said that the present Government in 1955 forced local authorities out on to the open market and he claimed that it was a countermeasure to inflation. I do not claim to be a financial expert, but how a countermeasure to inflation can arise from forcing local authorities to pay high interest rates and forcing up the amount


of rates that a local authority has to charge its individual ratepayers is beyond my comprehension.
Let us consider the effect of forcing local authorities on to the open market for three-quarters of their borrowing. In the old days, of course, a local authority borrowing money could play the open market off against the Public Works Loan Board. If the market were asking more than the Public Works Loan Board rates, then an authority could go to the Public Works Loan Board. At that time, in those conditions, the Public Works Loan Board rate was the ceiling for interest rates. Now, when the Government force local authorities into the open market first, to come back to the Public Works Loan Board only when they can prove their inability to raise money on the open market, of course, the Public Works Loan Board rate becomes the platform off which the open market jumps. Local authorities are then forced into negotiations with brokers and professional investors who are concerned with getting the last one-tenth per cent. possible.
What is the policy of the Public Works Loan Board in fixing its interest charges? I understand that it is not intended to reflect the Government's credit—and perhaps that is a good thing, because their credit must be very bad. I understand that it is intended to reflect the credit of a local authority of good standing. Is that so? If that is the intention of the Government, recent events tend to disprove it.
The Nottingham City Council has just been in the open market raising £3 million by an issue of stock. It did it at 6 per cent. The market opened at 10 o'clock in the morning and at 10.1 the lists were closed. So much money had been offered that those requiring less than £1,200 have been allocated nothing and those who asked for over £1,200 have had only 6 per cent. of their application granted. Not being a financial expert, I may be laying myself open to being shot at, but, to a simple mind like mine, that seems to prove that there is ample money on the market available for local government finance at 6 per cent.
After all, the Nottingham City Council is a local authority of good standing, as has been proved by the response to its offer. If there is plenty of money on the market available to a local authority of

good standing at 6 per cent., why does the Public Works Loan Board charge 7¼ per cent. for loans up to five years and 6¾ per cent. for loans over five years?
Let us consider the other effect. The Capital Issues Committee fixes a minimum of £3 million for stock issues. That is all right for the larger authorities, but most local government activity is among the smaller authorities, boroughs, urban districts and rural district councils. Government policy at the moment means that the largest authorities, those with the greatest resources, can get their money more cheaply, whereas those with slender resources must pay more. For big city councils like London, Birmingham and Manchester, the rate is 6 per cent. For smaller urban district councils and rural district councils, whose job is of equal importance, the rate is forced up to 7¼ per cent. for under five years and 6¾ per cent. for over five years.
On work and loans sanctioned by the various Government Departments, can the Financial Secretary justify charging local authorities those excessive rates of interest above the market price? It tends to make some of us believe that the Government are using the high interest rates of the Public Works Loan Board as a sanction against capital expenditure by the smaller local authorities. It is as well to remember that all the scales are weighted against the small local authorities.
Consider, for example, trustee securities. A county council, a county borough or a municipal borough with a population of over 50,000 automatically issues trustee stock, but in the case of the smaller local authorities and boroughs with populations of less than 50,000, the urban districts and the rural district councils, it is not trustee stock, unless in the dim and distant past they happened to have been granted powers for the issue of housing bonds or they had taken powers in a local Act. This, too, means that the field of finance open to the smaller local authorities is restricted. Trustee savings banks, superannuation funds and administrators who are limited to using trustee securities cannot lend to these local authorities. This also is an unfair burden, restriction and handicap upon the smaller local authorities.
The Government have forced local authorities out on to the open market,


as evidenced again by the figures of three-quarters and one-quarter admitted by the Financial Secretary today. Having forced them out to negotiate with the professional investor and the broker, why maintain this further restriction against trustee stock for the smaller authorities? Why not give them the opportunity to enter the market on the same terms as some of the other authorities?
Then there is the £3 million restriction by the Capital Issues Committee for local authorities. The number of local authorities wishing to raise £3 million is limited. As local authorities are now out in the open market, and it is to be more and more Government policy that they should be, should not the £3 million be reduced, perhaps, to £1 million or even the facility given to two or three local authorities to join together and make one stock issue?
My next point is that, because of Government policy and the policy of the Public Works Loan Board, local authorities are more and more being forced to the expedient of temporary or short-term borrowing, to such an extent that it is estimated that there is at present well over £100 million of local authority money out on seven days' call. For any treasurer—for example, of a small urban district council—with large sums of money, perhaps up to £500,000, on seven days' call, that is worrying enough.
It was a little less worrying until a short time ago, because local authorities were able to cushion themselves against the possible call on money by the arrangement with the banks to make advances to cover the period between the call-in of money on seven days' call and the financial officer's ability to get out and find other money. A further handicap has been laid upon the local authorities by the Government through the instruction which has been given to the banks, so that the banks have now withdrawn the bridging advances which local authorities used to have for three to four weeks.
I put this to the Financial Secretary. We are now advancing, or agreeing to advance or make available, £300 million through the Public Works Loan Board. In the event of local authorities being in difficulties within the next twelve months by the call of the seven-day money, the short-term money they have, will the Board come to the aid of the local

authorities placed in that difficulty because of the recall of the short-term money?
While the Financial Secretary is answering that question perhaps he will also deal with the complaint which local authorities have about the length of time the Board takes to make advances.

Mr. Leslie Thomas: The hon. Member has great experience of these things. Is he saying that the long-term projects of local authorities are based on short-term financing? Will he tell me, is that what is being done?

Mr. Lindgren: Since this Government in the last few years have caused this shocking experience through interest rates to the local authorities, the local authorities have been creating local loans pools. They have been taking advantage of any moneys which have become available as, for instance, on maturing loans they have not had to repay, and otherwise raising money in the expectation that interest rates were going back. They have been looking back to the golden days of the Labour Government and of the 2½ per cent. and 3 per cent. rate. They have been thinking that, perhaps, the Tory Government and their shocking rate of 5 per cent. cannot last. So they have been borrowing considerable sums of money for six months and on seven days' call thereafter. They have been borrowing for 364 days.
As I said just now, there is over £100 million out on seven-day call amongst the local authorities generally, but mainly the rural councils and smaller boroughs. In relation to the total liabilities of the local authorities that is not a tremendous sum, but for a small urban district with a rate poundage of, say, £700 for 1d. rate, a £500,000 liability on seven-day call is a terrible worry to its financial officer, to the chairman of its finance committee and to the members of the council as a whole, and it is not a worry that they ought to have to bear.
I was dealing with the unconscionable length of time which the Public Works Loan Board takes in making advances. The lapse of time between the date of application and the loan being agreed by the Board and the money being made available is from three to four weeks, and local authorities just cannot understand why the Board should take all that time.
I refer again to the question raised by the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. L. Thomas) when I say that local authorities are reluctant to go to the Board and be tied to a fixed rate of interest, now 6¾ per cent., a little while ago 5½ per cent., for 20,40 or 60 years. Local authorities think that that is to saddle them with responsibility for an exorbitant rate of interest.
I entered local government in the early 1920s. We were then faced, in our finance committees, not with the cost of work which we were doing from day to day at that time, but with the terrible burden which we had to carry as a result of the administration of Tory Governments of that period, at interest rates of 6 per cent. and 7 per cent. It is astonishing how, when Tory Governments allow their policy of freedom to go along so nicely, the burden always comes back to the local authorities at a rate of 6 per cent. and 7 per cent. interest.
The local authorities cannot understand, and I should like the Financial Secretary to explain it to us, why the Public Works Loan Board cannot vary its rates of interest, and why it makes a fixed rate of interest for the whole period of 20 years, 40 years or 60 years as the case may be. Why cannot there be a break clause so that local authorities can adjust their finances to the general condition of the market from time to time? Housing is a good example, and I am glad to see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government is present.
Local authorities are refusing to operate the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act, and Section 4 of the Housing Act, 1949, because they are losing money on the operation. The Ministry is getting worried, in spite of the Minister's denial the other day. The Minister has now indicated that he is prepared to present to the House legislation that will enable the local authorities to vary the rates of interest during the lifetime of a mortgage.

Mr. L. Thomas: The hon. Member has made a very important statement. I quite agree with him, and I think that the Financial Secretary will support me, that under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act rates for loans from the Public Works

Loan Board are not variable, but the hon. Member referred to the Housing Act, 1949, and said that the Minister had made a statement to the effect that he was prepared to introduce some amending legislation. In fact, the Housing Act, 1949, provides for a variable rate of interest at this moment. A local authority, in issuing a mortgage or loan under that Act, can vary the rate of interest to the purchaser.

Mr. Lindgren: I would not be prepared to argue too much about that, but there is certainly no such provision in the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act. It may be so under Section 4 of the Housing Act, 1949.
Local authority activities, in any event, comprise something considerably more than those activities which are concerned either with Section 4 of the 1949 Act or with the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act. There is the provision of water and sewerage, and so on. But I was arguing that the Public Works Loan Board interest rates are fixed for the whole period of the loan. The Minister has suggested that, to enable local authorities to deal more flexibly with house purchase, there should be a possibility of fluctuation of rates of interest. If that is so in the case of the house-purchase borrower, why should not the same facility be available to local authorities to enable them to avoid being committed to a high rate of interest over a long period?
The hour is getting late. There is much more I would have liked to say on this subject, and much more that ought to be said, but I hope I have said sufficient to produce from the Parliamentary Secretary one or two answers that will at least give local authorities some encouragement for the future of their finances. I am thinking particularly of the Public Works Loan Board rates of interest and their application to what is really the market rate. I hope, too, that the hon. Gentleman will give the local authorities some hope that they will not be saddled with these extortionate rates of interest for long periods of time, as they were in the 1920s.

10.16 p.m.

Sir James Henderson-Stewart: The hon. Gentleman the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) began his speech by saying—and I took a careful note of it—that the record of the


Public Works Loan Board does not inspire confidence. I do not know whether he really meant that?

Mr. Lindgren: If I cast any reflection upon the Board, it was not intended. The Board is carrying out Government policy. It is the action of the Government which has caused the Board to raise rates of interest. I had that in mind, not members of the Board.

Sir J. Henderson-Stewart: It is a good thing the hon. Gentleman has corrected himself, because it would have been a most unfair criticism of that public body if it were to go unchecked. Recently I have had some contact with the Public Works Loan Board on behalf of the Fife County Council. I would like the House to believe me when I say that I found the Board a most friendly, understanding body of men, and the Fife County Council would bear me out in that view.
The hon. Gentleman criticised the Board for what he called unconscionable delay in dealing with claims. That is not my experience. Three or four weeks for examining a claim, checking it and paying the money does not strike me as an unconscionable period. That seems to me a reasonable period if the Board is to lend an authority £1 million or some such sum.
I can only think that the hon. Gentleman does not appreciate what is the function of the Public Works Loan Board. If he will reflect for a moment, he will realise that it ought not to be intended as the first line of approach by an authority that wants capital for public works. It ought to be the reserve line, and that is precisely what the Government provided in the change of policy in 1955. It put the Public Works Loan Board in its proper place, in the sense that the local authority ought first from every point of view to stand upon its own credit, go to the market and get advances upon the strength of its own credit, and only if it fails, or if it has particular difficulties, should it turn to the last line of defence which is the Public Works Loan Board.

Mr. Harold Davies: The hon. Gentleman has revealed the fallacy of this kind of policy. He has said that it should be a last line of reserve. He has suggested that after local authorities have tried on the market, not before, they should try the Public Works Loan Board. May I

draw the attention of the hon. Gentleman to the antiquated, moth-eaten system of financing local government and to the irrelevancies of raising local finance? Local authorities are in a terrible position today because there has been no reorganisation of local government finance, and they have no hope of keeping up with richer authorities who happen to have mineral wealth or capitalist activity in their areas. It is completely wrong, if we are giving every person in England an equal chance according to the Tory philosophy of freedom, to fall back on the kind of philosophy which the hon. Gentleman has perpetrated.

Sir J. Henderson-Stewart: I wonder whether the hon. Member is fully aware of what is happening.

Mr. Harold Davies: I am too much aware of it.

Sir J. Henderson-Stewart: As I understand it, the Board takes the view today that the funds provided for it by Parliament should be made available rather more readily to those local authorities which have not the great wealth and standing of the larger ones and, therefore, need money and help more than the larger ones do. That strikes me as a reasonable and proper way to approach the problem.
The hon. Member for Wellingborough looked back nostalgically to the "golden days" of the Labour Government. It was no wonder that a great many of us laughed when he said that. They were the days of cheap money and "Daltons," the days when prices rose at a greater rate than ever before or since in our history, the days when we had to face the frightful disgrace of devaluation, the days which led up to the crisis of 1951 which nearly ruined the country. To describe those as the "golden days" of the Labour Government is fantastic.
The truth is that since then we have recognised that money prices must also rise a little. In latter years there has been a greater expansion of local authority service than ever before in our history, housing being twice what it was in the "golden days" of the Labour Government and public education being twice what it was in the years the hon. Member quoted. The truth is that the financial policy of the Government, brought about by the crisis which they inherited, has


led from the point of view of the advancement of public services, to one of the great periods in British history.

Mr. Thomas Hubbard: Does Fife County Council back up the words which the hon. Member is now uttering?

Sir J. Henderson-Stewart: I have already referred to the Fife County Council—I do not think the hon. Member was present then—and I need not repeat what I said. The point that I am making is that the general financial policy of the Government has led, in the practical way that we appreciate, in relation to schools, houses and so on, to one of the great periods of our history.

Mr. Lindgren: Can the hon. Gentleman explain this? I quoted figures relating to the period from 1951 to 1955, a period of four years after the term of office of the Labour Government, when interest rates were 3¾–4 per cent. Interest rates are fluctuating now, after six years of Toryism, to 6¾ per cent. Does that show financial stability?

Sir J. Henderson-Stewart: I do not know what the hon. Member wants. It is like all the policy of the Labour Party. Everything has to be on a dead level or it is no good. Why should rates of interest necessarily be at the same dead level from the beginning of the century to the end? That shows crass ignorance of the monetary system. The money market of this country is a free market. It is our money market which largely maintains our economic strength. Surely any intelligent Government must amend their policy to fit in with the movement of the market from time to time.

Mr. Lindgren: I am intrigued by the term "free market". A local authority does not think that a 6¾ per cent. interest rate is free. A local authority building a house costing £1,700 and having to pay 42s. a week in interest charges does not think money is free.

Sir J. Henderson-Stewart: The hon. Gentleman does not need to tell me that. We all know that very well. I do not want to enter a wider argument about the general financial policy of the country, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to argue about whether it is necessary now to raise

general interest rates to win the battle of inflation, I should be glad to have such an argument with him. We do not like the 6½ per cent. rate in Fife, but the general rate which Fife County Council and other authorities are now paying is not 6½ per cent. Only a small fraction of their total borrowings are at that high figure. The great majority of their borrowings with which they have built their houses have been at round about 4 per cent., a very different state of affairs. If hon. Members opposite will help us to win this battle against inflation, we will get the interest rates down.

10.25 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: In view of the lateness of the hour, I shall endeavour to curtail what I should otherwise have said. I want, firstly, to deal with the preliminary remarks of the hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Henderson-Stewart). It is well known by those who have taken part in these debates in the past that this has never been an occasion for criticising the activities of the Public Works Loan Board itself, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) did not intend to make any such suggestion. These debates always serve the purpose of enabling us to criticise the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards local authority borrowing for capital purposes. That is the subject which we are discussing tonight.
What disturbs me most is a paragraph in the last Report of the Board. The Report reveals, as everybody is aware, that the volume of lending to local authorities has fallen catastrophically and deliberately as a result of the policy of the Government. On page 7 there appears this sentence:
The heavy fall in the totals of loans approved and loans advanced during the year 1956–57 indicates the extent to which Local Authorities met their capital requirements from other sources.
That is only partially true. It may well be that local authorities resorted to the market and private lenders for some of their capital requirement, but what is more serious and nearer the truth is that, owing to the policy of Her Majesty's Government, many local authorities have had to postpone, suspend or abandon essential schemes which they would otherwise have started to carry out.
I do not propose in the short time I shall detain the House to refer to the subjects which are generally discussed in these debates, housing and education. We have heard repeatedly the complaints which we make against the Government as a result of their neglect of the requirements of both education and housing. I prefer to take the subject of public health and one aspect of public health which is at present far more important. What do the Reports show? The Report for the previous year, 1955–56, showed that loans advanced for public health were about £18 million. In 1956–57 the figure was slightly more than £9 million.
The irresistible conclusion is that many local authorities, as a result of this financial stringency to which they have been driven by the Government, have had to abandon essential works of public health. It is a serious matter because it is notorious that in public health matters there is already a large backlog of work to be done in connection with sewage disposal.
We do not often have an opportunity in the House of considering the not-too savoury subject of sewage disposal, but it is very germane to our discussion of the activities of the Public Works Loan Board. In my opinion, in a civilised society nothing is more important than an adequate system of sewage disposal. We are repeatedly hearing of the pollution of our rivers and streams and now of the pollution of our seashore. Only a few moments ago, in the debate on the last Amendment to the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, we heard an astonishing revelation by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser), which was not repudiated by the Joint Under-Secretary of State. My hon. Friend explained how the River Clyde was polluted, how the local authority wanted to cure that pollution and embark upon a scheme of sewage disposal and how it was prevented from doing so by the financial control exercised by the Government.
Recently this matter of sewage disposal has become far more important. Polio is becoming a national scourge. Opinions may differ about the connection between sewage disposal and polio, but a great deal of medical opinion thinks that there is a very close connection between them. There was a remarkable leading article in

The Times on 13th August, headed "A Filthy Business," which quoted the statements of the Secretary of the Institution of Public Health Engineers, who said that
no Public Health Engineer would ever think of bathing in the sea who has special knowledge of sewage disposal.
The hon. Member for Fife, East boasted of the Government's housing record. There is nothing to boast about in their record of dealing with sewage disposal. The truth is contained in The Times leading article:
Great populations have grown up and sanitary arrangements have been left lagging shamefully behind. Many outfalls were not well sited in the past. Fears of huge expenditure…make local authorities defeatist.
Referring to the filthy, beastly conditions which exist on so many beaches where the sewage flows up and down the coast, the article concludes that as a result of the neglect by local authorities of this vital service to public health
…bathing goes on…in conditions that amount to being perilously near those of paddling in a sewer.
One result of the Government's policy in this vitally important public health service is the production of a state of affairs which in my opinion is a disgrace to any civilised society.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. J. R. Bevins): indicated dissent—

Mr. Fletcher: The hon. Member shakes his head. He will have an opportunity of replying to the debate. It is no use his pointing to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury; the Financial Secretary has exhausted his right to speak in the debate. On Second Reading no hon. Member is allowed to speak more than once without leave, and I shall certainly object to any second speech from the Financial Secretary.
I did not want to be diverted from my speech, because I feel very strongly about the neglect of sewage disposal. I feel that in it we have a glaring example of the neglect of a vital service produced directly as a result of the Government's policy of making it impossible for local authorities to undertake essential public works. It is a scandal and it is enough to condemn the Government.

10.35 p.m.

Mr. Harold Davies: I sincerely hope that at some time whichever party is in power will give its time and attention to this overwhelming problem of local government finance. There is not the slightest doubt that the entire system needs overhauling. I do not intend to make a party point out of the matter, but I do want to say that to bring in an important Bill like this—[Interruption.] If I am interrupted I shall talk for a couple of hours in the mood I am in at the moment.

Mr. Robert Edwards: I have the Adjournment 'Motion.

Mr. Davies: if the Government were really concerned with the health and virility of local government activities, they would bring in a Bill as important as this as the first Bill in the afternoon's debate. This is an important debate, taking place at a very critical transition period in the history of this country. Nevertheless, the House is treated in this manner—and this has been the tendency under the present Government—by this important Bill being brought up at this hour, with the result that it cannot receive the attention it needs.
I want to quote from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government Report which, in page 7, says:
The year 1956 saw further changes in the rates of interest on local loans by the Public Works Loan Board. On 14th January the rate for loans for periods of more than 15 years was raised from 5 to 5¼ per cent.; to 5½ per cent. on 24th March; and to 5¾ per cent. on 20th October.
Then some other examples are given. What does that mean to local authorities? Some of us who represent rural areas in one part of which intensive industrial activities are carried on, while others consist of hill farming areas, know what a problem this represents to local authorities.
We are talking about furthering agricultural production. It is all very well for the Government to say that it is a good thing for local authorities to go on to the open market, and I expect that the hon. Member who is to reply will tell me that the Public Works Loan Board is a defence for our little local authorities. With all due respect, with a rate of 6¾ per cent. and 7 per cent., action has ceased in some of our little local authorities. If such an authority wants to

improve a road on a mountainside because it is a death trap for lorries carrying lime, for example, it has to remember that with interest rates at their present high percentage it will take years to clear off the loan of a few thousand pounds. In Leek Rural District Council housing is at a standstill, one of the reasons being the high interest rate.
This is a vital matter to those in rural areas. Let us consider the share of borrowing by local authorities, and see what proportion the Board has been paying since 1951–52. So as not to weary the House with masses of figures, I will express the situation in percentages. Let us take the advances from the Board for new capital purposes, expressed as a percentage of the total new loans. In the year 1951–52 the Public Works Loan Board lent 85 per cent.; in 1952–53, 77 per cent.; in 1953–54, 55 per cent.; in 1954–55, 69 per cent.; in 1955–56, 64 per cent., and tonight we have been told that out of £564 million-odd which local authorities are raising only £121 million is being raised by the Public Works Loan Board.
I assure the House that poor local authorities make as big a contribution as they can to the destiny of the country in agricultural produce. Even if we do not live in their areas, our motor lorries have to trail through them. Such local authorities are faced with an impossible problem.
We are now becoming a country of stinking rivers. It is a tragedy in rural Britain to see the condition of our rivers. We are becoming a country of death-trap roads. Finance officers of local authorities are bewildered by the problem of rising finances. Yet at this juncture we are limiting the capacity of the Public Works Loan Board to lend money to these poor authorities.
I had originally intended to delay the House longer with a number of other facts about the matter, but rather than do that I would prefer to get a fresh and virile reply from the Government Front Bench, if any Minister is fresh and virile enough to give it, because they sit there these days like "zombies" promising that something will be done. If this Government begin looking into the entire question of local government finance another Government can carry on with the job.
We are betraying the British public by pretending that in the event of war we could move 12 million people out of London over the kind of roads that we have today. That is in exactly the same strata as being told in the book on the hydrogen bomb that we can protect ourselves from the effects of the bomb by whitewashing our windows. Let us have no more whitewashing of the problem of local government finance.
It is the duty of the House to keep alive local democracy and, if possible, to make it more virile than ever before. It is our duty, without party malice, somehow to find a formula by means of which we can take a completely new look at the financial problems of British local government. I should like the Minister, when replying to the debate, to give a slight indication of how the Government are looking at these problems now posed before twentieth-century Britain which they hope to make great.

10.43 p.m.

Mr. A. Blenkinsop: I intervene in the debate partly because of the remarks addressed to us by the hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Henderson-Stewart). It seemed to me that the hon. Gentleman was putting before us, on the one hand, the argument that the period of the Labour Administration with low interest rates for local authorities was one of great misery and suffering for the country. Almost immediately afterwards he went on to say that the position of local authorities, which were today having to pay such very high interest rates, was not as bad as it might otherwise have been, because a great part of their borrowing had been done during the period of the Labour Administration, and that therefore their average interest rate charges was a good deal less than the current rate. If there was ever an example of muddled thinking it was those remarks of the hon. Gentleman.
The Report of the Public Works Loan Board which we have before us indicates the terrific problem facing local authorities, and I should like to support what one of my hon. Friends said about many of the valuable and vital projects with which local authorities could be going ahead but which have been stopped entirely by the rates which are now imposed upon them. Indeed, the Public

Works Loan Board points out that since 1945 there have been fifteen changes in the rates. Even apart from the actual amount being paid, there has been a complete lack of knowledge of what rates will be demanded from local authorities over any reasonable period of time, which makes any kind of planning or working ahead almost impossible. Thirteen of those fifteen changes have been during the period of office of a Conservative Administration.
I should like to emphasise the very real importance of what has been said about these schemes. My hon. Friend referred particularly to sewage schemes, very rightly because of their enormous public health significance, and the way in which they have been rejected and local authorities find it impossible to go ahead with them because of the high rates which are now charged. That is presumably the object of the Government. Yet while these vital projects for the health of the country are prohibited, a great deal of private development takes place which is obviously of much less significance and importance.
One speaks with a good deal of feeling on matters like this because of conditions in one's own area. Reference has been made to various projects in the South. There is no river that is more of an open sewer than the River Tyne. There have been arguments about this for a long time, and there are now great campaigns in progress in order to try to get something done. I am sorry that the representatives of Ministry of Housing and Local Government seem to have disappeared temporarily from the Government Front Bench. They have made it quite clear to the local authority that nothing can be done. It is only by ignoring the opposition of the Ministry—and this is the great tragedy—that there is any prospect at all of even the slightest mitigation of the problem. The same kind of problem emerges with regard to clean air.

Mr. Anthony Kershaw: The hon. Gentleman must not assume that all works of this sort are at a standstill. In my own constituency important sewage and pumping works have recently been permitted and are going ahead.

Mr. Blenkinsop: I am not saying that all schemes have been stopped. I am merely saying that the rate of interest


that is charged is obviously designed to prevent them and delay them. That is the whole reason for their existence.
There is every possible effort exerted by the Government to delay clean air projects which we know to be of real significance to the whole community. We are more and more recognising that in the interests of health we should not concentrate solely on remedying the conditions that people develop but that we should do far more to prevent those conditions occurring.
In that respect, clean air and clean water are matters of overwhelming importance. Yet I charge it against the Government that, by this money policy which they have adopted, they are successfully preventing very many local authorities from doing works which they urgently need to do. For that reason, I regret very much the policy which the Government have imposed upon the Public Works Loan Board. In other circumstances, the Board would, no doubt, be able to carry out its duty in a manner far different from that which is possible for it today.

10.50 p.m.

Mr. James MacColl: My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) has asked me to apologise to the House for his absence and to explain that he has been called away on private business; it is not the nervous strain of the prospect of seeing me perform here which has led him to depart.
We have had a debate which is not unlike many other debates we have had on the subject of the Public Works Loan Board. The only thing I was grateful to the hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary for was that he did not attempt on this occasion—indeed, no hon. Member opposite attempted—to talk about freedom for the local authorities. There was a sort of "golden age" in about 1955 when we were told that everything was to be wonderful, the local authorities would be big boys and no longer would they have to work on the leading strings of the Public Works Loan Board. We were told that they were to be given the opportunity to show that they could get money themselves, trying their own luck, and everything would be splendid.
Since then, there has been a steady increase in the interest rates, and local authorities have found it more and more difficult to obtain money from anywhere. The resources of finance departments in most local authorities have been taken up in trying to scrape the barrel to find some money for their capital commitments rather than with the job for which they are trained, the job placed upon them by Statute, that is, looking after and husbanding the resources of the ratepayers.
There is no doubt that the position of local authorities at the moment is one of complete restriction, restrictions not only because of the impossibility of getting any money from anywhere, but restrictions as a result of the rigid control exercised by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Ministry of Education. The suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) that we might have a reply from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government has led to his precipitate retreat from the Chamber. I hope that I shall not be thought unfair to the Department if I say that its work is today very largely one simply of throttling down the demands of local authorities which wish to undertake capital works.
The fact that so much money is spent none the less, in spite of the difficulties of borrowing and in spite of the difficulties of interest rates, is a sign that there is a tremendous potential reserve of work which requires to be done—vital work, work on things which are at present a danger to health, which are holding up the development of highways, of education, or of housing. One need not do more than quote from the recent Circular No. 54/57 of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, dealing with the restriction of capital investment, to make the point. There, in paragraph 3, there is a reference to what my hon. Friend for Islington, East was speaking about, "Schemes other than Housing":
As regards schemes for water, sewerage and sewage disposal, and the various miscellaneous local government services for which the Department is responsible, these have all been subject to severe restriction for the past 18 months. Administration of these services will continue on the existing basis for the time being. Most local authorities contemplating large schemes have made a practice of discussing with officers of the Department,


at Whitehall or Cardiff as the case may be, the question when they can hope to start, before committing themselves to expenditure, and they should continue to do so.
In other words, the Circular says—as local authorities have learned from their experience over the past eighteen months—that it is precious little use having any ideas about capital investment to improve their social services because the Government have stopped them in the past and they intend to apply even harder pressure in the future.
Against that background, let us consider the position of the Public Works Loan Board. The report which we had from the Financial Secretary contained nothing about which one could feel any pride or satisfaction at all. It was a miserable story of throttling down the work that the Government themselves in their legislation require to be done. The inexplicable feature of the whole situation is that the Government apparently wish to have development in education and in the other social services, and they are paying a substantial amount towards the cost of these services by way of grant, and yet at the same time they are making it more expensive for the local authorities to obtain the money towards which they are paying grant.
I should like to take up one point which arose from what my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough and the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. L. Thomas) said about having variable interest rates for house purchase. This is not a major side of the work of local authorities, but it is, or should be, of increasing importance as a natural result of the Government's policy over the Rent Act. The more that decontrolled tenants are forced to find enormous premiums, disguised as they may be in the sale of furniture or anything else, as a condition of obtaining a lease, in so far as people are being encouraged to go in for home ownership rather than rented houses, a tremendous demand for financial assistance is bound to be created.
I was interested to see in The Times of 15th November, in the same column, two interesting pieces of evidence on this point. The first was something in which I had never expected to find support for my own views. It was a report of the annual dinner of the Incorporated Society of Auctioneers and Landed Property

Agents, in which hon. Members opposite would be more at ease than I would. The President of the Society, it was reported, said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his determination to put a stop to inflation, had struck a grievous blow at those who were ready to help themselves and the country by saving for a house of their own. The language is not mine, and I am not wishing to identify myself with it, but it is the kind of language that hon. Members opposite churn out in large quantities at elections and party meetings. It is something with which they are familiar. If they believe that people who save for a house of their own are patriotic and reasonable, are they aware of the view taken by this important body that they are strangling that possibility?
On top of that appeared another very interesting report concerning the Finance Committee of the London County Council, headed "L.C.C. restrict home loans". It said:
The increase in applications"—
for house purchase—
has followed the recent rise in interest rates and difficulties in borrowing, which have led many more authorities to stop or reduce their lending. The result has been more applications to the L.C.C. and a report to next Tuesday's meeting says that the £1,250,000 provision for loans was not sufficient to meet the rising demand.
In other words, what has been happening is that the smaller authorities in London are ceasing to lend money at all for house purchase and the whole responsibility is going on to the County Council, which is finding that its resources are not adequate for the purpose. If the party opposite believe what they say about home ownership, if they are to fulfil the pledges they gave when the Rent Bill was under discussion, they really must do something about this.
I should like the Financial Secretary to elucidate paragraph 8 in the Circular from which I have already quoted. It has been referred to by the Minister of Housing and Local Government as a statement of his policy in this matter. What the Circular says is that—
The Minister reminds local authorities that they have power to make loans for house purchase; and he will be willing to consider new or revised schemes which will provide for a varying rate of interest on advances under the Housing Acts.


We have been discussing the fact that under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act the rate of interest cannot be varied but that it can be varied under the Housing Act. What part are the Minister and the Public Works Loan Board prepared to play in this process? What part will they play if a scheme is prepared under which varying rates of interest will be payable on advances and if a scheme is prepared to meet the request of the auctioneers—and again I quote from the same speech—that:
There should be provision, if necessary preferential provision, of credit facilities and taxation reliefs of such a character as to act as incentives for those who generally wish to have a house of their own.
If local authorities prepare a scheme giving preferential interest rates to those who want a house of their own, will the Public Works Loan Board be empowered to lend money at preferential rates for this purpose?
I cannot believe that, even with the cynicism of the present Government towards local authorities, it is expected that those authorities should be prepared to borrow money at 6 per cent. and lend it at 4 per cent. or 3 per cent. That, obviously, would be something beyond their powers or their duties. Therefore, I ask whether the Government are prepared to amend their directive to the Board in such a way that it would be possible for purposes of this kind to lend money at less than the maximum rate at which it is now lending. That is a question to which points in the Minister's Circular are relevant and which requires an answer. I hope that the Financial Secretary will be able to give us an answer.
I do not want to recapitulate all the points made, not only on this but on previous occasions, about the financial position in which the local authorities find themselves. I want to make only a general point which I think sums up the whole situation. The hon. Baronet, the Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Henderson-Stewart) said that he had always found the Public Works Loan Board courteous and prompt in dealing with applications. My own experience, more than a year ago, when my local authority, Widnes, applied for assistance from the Board was that the Board was most courteous, most efficient and most speedy—and turned down the application.
I think that that must have been the experience of a great many middle-sized local authorities all over the country; and it is the middle-sized authorities which are not equipped for the job of playing the short-term money market. It is a fantastic situation that the central Government should be indifferent to the needs of and the problems facing the average-sized local authorities. The great local authorities, no doubt, can get their own money by floating long-term loans. The local authorities which cannot go into the market have to live from hand to mouth.
The suggestion that local authorities borrow short has been criticised by one of my hon. Friends. My own experience is that that has been happening because everybody hopes that we shall get rid of the Government and have a fall in the rate of interest. Therefore, the best thing that local authorities can do is to try to borrow for a few months until things get better.
As long as the present Government are in office, of course, the financial pressure on the local authorities gets worse and worse. This Bill is merely the sum of the complete indifference of the central Government to the local authorities, the failure of the Government to regard themselves as partners with the local authorities in building up services, and the abrogation by the Government of any responsibility for what is happening. That is a miserable story which we hope we shall never have to tell again. We hope that next year we shall have a Government in a position to act as they should act, as the partners and friends of the local authorities.

Mr. Powell: rose—

Mr. Speaker: By leave of the House?

Mr. Powell: If I may, by leave of the House, speak again—

Mr. E. Fletcher: On a point of order. I intend no disrespect to the Financial Secretary, but, as I understand it, it is contrary to the rules of order that any hon. Member should speak twice on the Second Reading of a Bill. I have been aware for some time past that this practice has been growing, and it seems to me to be contrary to the traditions of the House. It is competent, as I


understand it, for any other Government spokesman to reply to a Second Reading debate.
On this occasion, questions have been put from this side of the House which can be adequately answered only by a spokesman from the Ministry of Health. Might I, therefore, suggest to you that, as I do not think any of us are particularly anxious to hear the Financial Secretary again, the right course would be for this debate to be adjourned in order that on some subsequent occasion a spokesman from the Ministry of Health may answer the points that have been raised tonight?

Mr. Speaker: I could not accept a Motion for the adjournment of the debate, but if the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) objects to the Financial Secretary speaking again, that means, according to the rules of order, that he cannot speak again. Does the hon. Member object to the Financial Secretary speaking again?

Mr. Fletcher: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I am tired of this practice of the same Government spokesman speaking over and over again.

Mr. Speaker: Then I must put the Question.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Hughes-Young.]

Committee upon Monday next.

PUBLIC WORKS LOANS [REMISSION OF DEBT)

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).—[Queen's Recommendation signified.]

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Resolved,
That, for the purpose of any Act of the present Session relating to local loans, it is expedient to authorise the remission of unpaid balances of principal and all arrears of interest due to the Public Works Loan Commissioners in respect of loans to Southam Works Housing Society Limited and South Staffordshire Mines Drainage Commissioners. [—Mr. Powell.]

Resolution to be reported upon Monday next.

WAYS AND MEANS

[20th November]

PROTECTIVE CUSTOMS DUTIES

Resolution reported,
That provision may be made, in place of that made by Part I of the Import Duties Act, 1932, for enabling goods imported into the United Kingdom to be charged with customs duties designed to give protection to United Kingdom goods or to confer preference on Commonwealth goods (and goods accorded the same privileges as Commonwealth goods); and the provision so made may supersede, in addition to Part I of the Import Duties Act, 1932, the provision for charging customs duties which is made by any of the enactments in the following list—

1. The Safeguarding of Industries Act, 1921.
2. Section four of the Finance Act, 1925, section five of the Finance Act, 1932, and section nine of the Finance Act, 1933 (which imposed the silk and artificial silk duties).
3. The Ottawa Agreements Act, 1932, section six of the Finance Act, 1934, and section eight of the Finance Act, 1935 (which imposed certain duties for the purpose of conferring imperial preference).
4. The Beef and Veal Customs Duties Act, 1937.
5. Subsection (4) of section three of the Eire (Confirmation of Agreements) Act, 1938 (which conferred power to impose duty on eggs or poultry from Eire in certain circumstances).
6. The Schedule to the Customs Tariff Act, 1876, so far as it relates to figs, fig cake, plums or raisins, and section three of the Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1890 (which relates to currants).
7. Subsection (2) of section eighty-one of the Finance (1909–1910) Act, 1910 (which relates to chloroform and certain other articles containing or made from spirits.

Resolution read a Second time.

Question, That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 86 (Ways and Means Motions and Resolutions), and agreed to.

RETALIATORY CUSTOMS DUTIES

Resolution reported,
That provision may be made, in place of that made by Part II of the Import Duties Act, 1932, for enabling goods imported into the United Kingdom to be charged with customs duties designed to retaliate for discrimination against United Kingdom, colonial or other goods.

Resolution read a Second time.

Question, That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution, put forthwith, pursuant to


Standing Order No. 86 (Ways and Means Motions and Resolutions), and agreed to.

GENERAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS IN CONNECTION WITH NEW CUSTOMS DUTIES.

Resolution reported.
That any Act of the present Session making provision for charging customs duties in place of that made by the Import Duties Act, 1932, may make provision—

(a) for prescribing a form of tariff for use for any customs purpose whether relating to the new duties to be charged under the Act or other duties;
(b) for securing a uniform system of Commonwealth preference for the new duties and other customs duties where preference is now given to Commonwealth goods and adapting the enactments relating to customs preferences to the provision made for the new duties:
(c) for extending to any customs duties any provision made for the new duties in relation to produce of the sea or goods produced or manufactured at sea;
(d) for exemptions, drawbacks and other reliefs from the new duties, for the administration of the new duties and of any such relief and for constituting in that behalf a Board with the general function of giving assistance to Government departments concerned with the new duties and such other functions as may be conferred on it, and generally for any subordinate matters.

Resolution read a Second time.

Question, That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 86 (Ways and Means Motions and Resolutions), and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolutions by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir David Eccles, and Mr. Vaughan-Morgan.

IMPORT DUTIES BILL

Bill to confer new powers to impose duties of customs in place of the powers conferred by the Import Duties Act, 1932, and, in connection therewith, to repeal the duties of customs chargeable under or by virtue of that Act and of certain other enactments and to make general provision for the purpose of customs duties as to Commonwealth preference and as to produce of the sea, and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday next and to be printed.

MIDLANDS ELECTRICITY BOARD (WORKERS' PENSION SCHEME)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Hughes-Young.]

11.9 p.m.

Mr. Robert Edwards: Far be it from me to delay the House unnecessarily, but even at this late hour I have a duty to perform on behalf of about 250 employees of the electricity supply industry. I know that the staff of the House of Commons who serve us so well want to catch their last trains, so I will state the case as clearly and as briefly as I can.
The anomaly to which I want to refer relates to the manual workers' pension scheme in the electricity supply industry in the West Midlands area. There are three pensions schemes covering manual workers in that area and, as far as I can ascertain, it is only in this part of the electricity supply industry that the social injustices which I am about to relate exist. Before the industry was nationalised, a very modest pensions scheme for manual workers was introduced. Entrance into the scheme became a condition of employment. The scheme was based on a contribution of 1s. a week and it carried a retirement pension of only £1 a week at the very most.
When the industry was nationalised, however, a new scheme was introduced carrying much better benefits, but the old employees of the industry in this area, for some reason or other, were not allowed to transfer to the new scheme which carried the increased benefits. It is true that the trade unions concerned, the National Union of General and Municipal Workers, representing some of the employees, and the Electrical Trades Union, representing other and more skilled employees, accepted the new pension schemes, but they did so on the assumption that the two schemes, the old and the new, would be harmonised in a short time and that the anomalies would be automatically removed.
One example of the situation today is shown by quoting the example of a constituent of mine, a highly skilled charge hand maintenance engineer who is 47 years of age and who has worked in


the industry for about twenty-seven years. After serving a further twenty-one years, he will retire on a pension of about 17s. 6d. a week. A fitter's mate who works under his authority and who has only two and a half years' service in the industry, and who will retire in the same year as the skilled charge hand maintenance engineer, will have a pension of £3 a week. There is obviously a grave social injustice which should be eliminated by agreement at the earliest possible moment.
Another example comes from the switchboard at Brierley Hill. Five switchboard operators are employed there and all five will retire on different pensions. One man with twenty-one years' service, a skilled man, will retire with a pension of 12s. 6d. a week. Another man doing the same job will have a pension of 11s. 6d. Another, after thirty years' service, will retire with a pension of 14s. a week and another with the same service as the man who will retire with a pension of 12s. 6d. a week will retire with a pension of £5 a week under a pension scheme different from that of the old South Worcestershire electricity supply industry. It is obvious that something must be done to eliminate social injustices of that sort.
I have written to the Minister and had questions asked on the Floor of the House. This matter has been discussed at trade union level locally and nationally, it has been discussed by the management committee which control the new pensions scheme, and it has carried a unanimous resolution suggesting that, in the interests of the electrical supply industry, the two schemes should be merged and these difficulties eliminated. The Minister now must make a decision. At the end of this year the electrical supply industry will have a new structure that will deal with distribution.
I understand that the Central Electricity Authority, at national level, has also agreed that the superannuation schemes for manual workers in this part of the country where these anomalies exist should be amended so as to clear away these difficulties. So it is the Minister who can make this decision. I beg the Parliamentary Secretary to realise that one cannot have harmony in this part of the industry, nor the complete co-operation that is required in this important public service while

discontent arises on a simple issue which the Minister can decide very quickly.

11.17 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. David Renton): I am in the happy position of being able to give the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bilston (Mr. R. Edwards) a satisfactory answer to the point that he has raised. The position is that under the 1947 Electricity Act the old company pensions schemes and the local authority pensions schemes had to be perpetuated by the Central Electricity Authority and the area boards in favour of the former employees of the companies and local authorities already in those schemes.
The Electricity Act also gave power to the Central Electricity Authority to submit to the Minister of Fuel and Power, as he then was, for approval, any scheme which could be agreed between all concerned, which would embrace all employees who were not embraced by previous schemes and could include employees generally. The scheme which was submitted and approved by the former Minister of Fuel and Power, in 1955, did not apply to those who already had the benefit of the old schemes, whether company schemes or municipality schemes.
As the hon. Member has said, the Central Electricity Authority has now submitted to the Minister of Power various amendments to the scheme approved in 1955. One of the proposals is that all the present employees of the Central Electricity Authority and area boards who are at present included in the old company pensions schemes, or the old municipality schemes, but are excluded from what is called the manual workers' pensions scheme, shall be able to join the manual workers' pensions scheme if they wish with effect from an early date.
My noble Friend the Minister of Power has approved that proposal in principle. Several details have yet to be worked out and the final drafting has to be approved by all concerned, but I am glad to assure the hon. Member that the point which he raised tonight, and which I am glad that he raised, will be met and that my noble Friend has so decided.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes past Eleven o'clock.